MatchBook

Amazon’s matchbook –

I am someone who often gets psyched about upcoming technologies or gadgets. Sometimes even for no reason, like I was super psyched about Google Glass, Moto X (yes I am a Google fan boi ) , possible new nexus 7 , kindle fire . Most of them turn out to be a damper. But this one has me completely psyched.

Many readers like me were wondering when would this happen; well now we know the answer – Starting this October.

So as part of the program –

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For thousands of qualifying books, your past, present and future print-edition purchases will soon allow you to buy the Kindle edition for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free.

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I was always torn apart between buying ebook and print books. One offers familiarity and old world charm other offers portability and benefit of applying computing power on it (search for a string, definition of word etc). Thanks to this program, now I can enjoy best of both worlds without having to compromise at all. I would most definitely want to order a physical book and read it but if I want to search something or preserve it for future read it I can store it in my kindle account.

Though sadly enough, this program does not announce discounted print books if you have already bought ebooks. I guess they are trying to push ebooks on people who are prone to reading physical books. This would enhance sales of their device and hook people completely to the Amazon ecosystem. It will also have a minor reversal effect on few people like me. I was thinking of moving towards ebook world, now I don’t need to.

This provides me more of an incentive to buy Amazon’s Kindle fire HD. But I am pretty sure they are going to introduce a new one sometime this year. So hold back on that for now.

It is ironic that, though I am a google fan boi and downplay most of its competitors like Apple and Microsoft.  I absolutely love Amazon  which is probably the competitor which has had most direct impact on Google's revenue .