Just when I was coming to terms with my ambivalence toward my Kindle e-book reader, Amazon and the publishers have gotten greedy.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the device since I bought my first one about 9 months ago. As a frequent traveler and voracious reader, I’ve found the Kindle to be nearly ideal. I never have fewer than a dozen books in its memory, and they’re always things I want to read.

As someone who believes we should often interact with media instead of passively consuming it, however, I don’t think much of the Kindle for any purpose other than reading a narrative. And given what a disaster “digital rights management” (DRM) is becoming for scholarship, culture and ultimately freedom, the device’s restrictions on how I can use what I’ve purchased are deeply troubling.

Still, I’ve been using it with some degree of satisfaction (as have enough other people to have helped boost Amazon’s stock price, so as the holder of several hundred shares I’m slightly better off in that way, too). The second-generation model improved nicely on the first–among other things, fixing some user-interface quirks, letting me charge it via a USB cable, and boosting the battery life.

The books I load onto the device fall generally under the casual entertainment category. I buy a Kindle book the way I buy a movie ticket (or did before going to theaters became such a crappy experience).

These are books, like most movies, that I’ll read or watch once and forget about. A physical book is more like a DVD–something I want to own and enjoy again and again.

So the kinds of books I tend to buy for the Kindle are the sort I’d often pick up at an airport newsstand, namely mysteries, thrillers and semi-trashy novels that I’d sometimes leave in hotels or airplane seat-back pockets once I’d finished them. (I also subscribe to several magazines, and consider it a favor not to see the advertising.)

Once I got accustomed to reading e-books, I started doing something that had been out of character in the analog era: buying new books that, in print, were available in hardcover only. Why? The price, typically $10 (okay, one penny less), was right. In fact, my new-book purchases soared.

But not for long. In recent weeks, Amazon (AMZN) or the publishers (or both) have done their best to deter me from buying the latest releases. Prices have gone up, way up.

Now, I often find books for which I’d have gladly paid $10 listed at $14 or $15. I save these to a list I keep on the Amazon website, called “Too expensive for Kindle,” and periodically check to see if the price has dropped. So far, not yet on any of these.

Hiking prices this way creates a bad deal for the customer. Amazon’s price for a new hardcover is typically just a couple of dollars higher. This means I could buy the hardcover, read it and donate it to my local library, and–after the tax deduction–come out ahead. I’d do even better taking the book to my local used-book store and getting cash.

But I almost never buy new hardcovers of books I don’t expect to reread or use as a reference, because a) I’m kind of cheap; and b) I can stand waiting for the paperback. So if prices stay high, I stay away.

Now, sellers have every right to charge more for popular books, especially when they’re new. This is basic supply and demand. But when the price only makes sense for people who consider the ultra-portability of an e-book paramount, that’s a turnoff for other potential buyers.

As a customer I also understand supply and demand. My demand is extremely elastic, and in this case it’s snapped.

Last week’s introduction of the Kindle DX was framed in many ways by different constituencies, but I was taken aback by the praise heaped on the device by several newspaper people, including the CEO of the New York Times Co. (NYT) (in which I also own a small amount of stock). Newspapers aren’t going to fix their considerable woes with Kindles, and anyone who thinks so lives in a fantasy world.

The DX, with its bigger screen, strikes me as potentially useful in several ways, possibly including the textbook function that Amazon hopes to jumpstart with the help of several universities (including the one that employs me). But if textbook publishers don’t radically cut prices on the outrageously expensive books they sell, they will find themselves creating a strong incentive for precisely what they don’t want: unauthorized copying.

I suspect the DX will prove most useful in more prosaic ways. For example, it could be a nearly ideal container and viewer for technical documentation–thick manuals that need periodic updating, where the cost of printing is prohibitive and the bulk of the books is daunting for the user.

Will all of this be made moot by the widely anticipated Apple (AAPL) “NetPad” or whatever it’s going to be called? I refer to a device that looks like a larger version of the iPod Touch, which would be a wonderful mobile multimedia player, among other likely capabilities.

I doubt it. If you enjoy severe eye strain, reading books on a back-lit, glossy display is just the ticket. The passive displays on Kindles, the Sony (SNE) e-reader and other such devices are much better for this kind of reading.

One size does not fit all in the emerging world of devices. Then again, one carry-on bag doesn’t hold all devices. For now, however, the Kindle has a place in mine.

Last week, I pulled out my Internet cable, unplugged my USB drives, and searched my Windows machine for Conficker, the astounding computer worm that threatens to wreak global havoc once its latest version begins to phone home for further instructions on April 1. Well, maybe: While security researchers warn that the worm’s creators may be planning on conducting fraud or even “information warfare” aimed at disrupting the Internet, nobody knows what terrible deed Conficker will ultimately pull off. What we do know is that Conficker is devilishly smart, terrifically contagious, and evolving.

Read the rest of this post

To the usual trappings that help many homeless people endure life on the streets–woolen blankets, shopping carts or cardboard box shelters–add the humble cellphone.

Today, it’s not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia (NOK) 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check email or urge friends to read their blogs.

It’s another sign of a society in transition by way of technology, as businesses shed physical addresses for cyberspace and homeless people can establish an online presence and chase opportunities digitally.

Read the rest of this post

So here I am. In a hotel room in New York. The writing desk and its view of xth Avenue are all but obscured by:

7 x Mini USB cables: 2 of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard.

1 x Ethernet cable: into wall-socket of hotel room. 8 bucks a day. But using Ethernet rather than the hotel’s Wi-Fi allows me to share via a wireless network that I create on my laptop. That way all my other toys can be online without separate logging on and billing. Hotels make so much money from “high-speed” Internet these days. Well, they’ve lost their once-juicy phone income I suppose. I remember back in the early nineties, before the world wide Web was so much a glint in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye and the net was all VERONICA, JANET, WAIS, Gopher and FTP, I ran up a Princeton hotel phone bill of three and half thousand dollars in one calendar week. Ach, die schöne Zeit …

Read the rest of this post

UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik today cut his ratings on both AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) to Hold from Buy, asserting that “the weak economy is pressuring wireline fundamentals at the Bells more than expected.” He expects to see accelerating line loses, weaker broadband adds and slowing growth in small- medium-sized businesses. Hodulik also says the wireless segment will get more competitive once Apple’s (AAPL) 3G iPhone hits the shelves next month at its new $199 price point.

Read the rest of this post

What do I do now?

In 1991, I released my first record on MCA (or MCI, as my mom always mistakenly told her friends, hoping to impress them). I was bummed, as I had just missed the opportunity to have my face big on an album cover. But vinyl was over, and the CD format (with the long cardboard box–remember that?) was the wave of the future.

Since then, I have been dropped by two major labels and languished on two indies that both went bankrupt.

Well, no one in my world (the music industry) seems to really know what to do. That’s why I am asking you D geeks if you have any ideas.

Right now I have plenty of what I think are really swell songs. Here’s one:

None of my musician friends are mourning the demise of the record industry. Most of us got crummy deals anyway and never saw a penny of royalties. My nephews expect really expensive birthday gifts from me, as they think that I must be rolling in dough, having been on MTV a few times. I always acquiesce, not wanting to tell them the truth.

For us, in this YouTube, long-tail, Kara-and-Walt world, it’s an exciting time. But it’s also confusing. How do I release my next recordings? Do I still put out a CD in the traditional way, or just go digital? Do I send demos one last time to the remaining majors or go indie (this time with a company that lasts longer than a year) and get a, say, 50/50 deal? Do I just finance the whole thing myself–musicians, studio, marketing, publicist, radio, promo, video, etc.? And where do I get the money? How do I pay the rent? How do I support my gambling and morphine habits?

One thing I am doing is working with the guys at QiGO (who presented their invention, a key-shaped USB device that launches a predetermined Web site when connected to a computer, this year at D5). One of my strong points is my live performance (I have heard). I sell my CDs at the concerts, but people who are fans already have them. Plus, some feel that the recordings do not, and cannot have, the fun and spontaneity of a live show. Some artists drag a bunch of CD burners to tape their shows. People will stand in line for hours to get a copy of the concert they just saw. I had this idea with Dan Klitsner (co-founder of QiGO) that we could sell his little USB keys, people could go home and the next day they could download the show. We gave away keys at my last New York show, and everyone seemed to really like it. (We are still working out the kinks.)

Now to the question of how to finance a new album (I still like saying “album”). I once had this idea of asking my fans to chip in and become “stockholders,” sort of like investors in Broadway shows. So one fan could give maybe $100, and a wealthier one could give a grand or more. Once the record breaks even, they would get their money back and subsequently a cut of the profits–if any. And they would all feel part of the success of a smash-hit record–fun! My manager and lawyer were so not into it and discouraged me. They said it would be a nightmare on all fronts. I still do kind of like the idea. Plus, these days, to make a record does not cost as much as it once did. Everybody and everybody’s brother has Pro Tools or GarageBand in their computers. The big-time studios have had to cut down their rates substantially.

Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?

Help.

By the way, I don’t have a morphine or gambling problem…yet.