At a recent soiree, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reported that the company now has 300,000 titles available in both print and Kindle versions; of these, 35 percent of sales have been in the electronic format. These are astonishing numbers, given that Kindle is less than two years old -- and that it suffers a basic black-and-white screen, feeble internet-browsing capability, and a lack of simple input programs, such as a word processor.

Why has this format succeeded where others failed? I'm convinced the keys are the strength of Amazon's marketing, the effortless book-delivery system (via the Sprint cellular network), and our culture's seemingly bottomless taste for electronic devices.

Of course, such success does not go unnoticed; almost daily, it seems, we read of companies preparing to unveil their own electronic readers. Apple (AAPL), Barnes & Noble (BKS), Fujitsu, even Rupert Murodch's News Corp. (NWS) empire could have devices on the shelves within the year. Some could even offer a color picture.

Can any company match the catalog of Amazon, though? That is the challenge. For the public, choice can be a good thing, driving down the cost of an e-book and a device to read it on.

Kindle's success shocked me; its continued success in a highly competitive market will be only a mild surprise. But I've learned not to underestimate the product developers at Amazon.

Tom Barlow is an avid reader who will miss the marginalia of the paper library book, cryptic messages left by prior readers, sometimes decades past. Do you suppose Marcia still loves Bruce?

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