Amazon's Kindle - cute but expensive

I went to the press conference for Amazon's new Kindle 2 today, and while I thought that the device itself is adorable, and I'd love to have one to play with and show off (with any luck, I'll at least be able to play with a review loaner sometime in the future), I just can't seem to get over the $359 selling price.

Yes, Amazon deserves to make money on what is a really cool piece of technology, and yes, it will probably find plenty of folks to make the purchase. But my feeling is that these types of ebook readers won't be truly successful until they become ubiquitous, and that's not going to happen at that price. (And it's not like Amazon is going to be selling the older model at a lower price, either -- although you may be able to get some deals on eBay.)

Anyway, I blogged my reactions to the Kindle and to the idea that Amazon is going to save "long form" reading (i.e. novels and other longer works) via the Kindle. It's on the Computerworld (my day job) site:

Amazon introduces the Kindle 2 -- will it save "long form" reading? - Computerworld Blogs