Kindle Desperation

Amazon.com has been promoting Kindle, their new e-book reader, for weeks and weeks and weeks. That's fine to a point, but two things about it are driving me absolutely crazy.

First, the Kindle has been monopolizing their home page non stop (at least the version that they serve to me every time I visit). Second, it's not available. It's always sold out.

That's right -- you can't even get one right now, and it's been that way the past few times I've clicked through to the item page. What a waste of home page real estate. They should at least downplay it a little until it is back in stock. I wonder how much business they are losing by perpetually promoting an out-of-stock product in a location where they should be maximizing every opportunity to generate immediate revenue.

Update on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 08:30AM by Rob

Today, Amazon.com has decided to dedicate their home page to a letter from Jeff Bezos apologizing for the delays on Kindle deliveries. It's a great letter -- sincere and succinct. I have no doubts that the product has done better than they expected, and that's terrific. I just wonder if they'd have to be making such an apology if they hadn't been pushing it so hard on the home page when it was out of stock.