Are e-books the next big thing?

C|Net's news.com is reporting that Amazon.com is set to introduce its own e-book reading device, and presumably a matching download service, on Monday, November 19, 2007. This Amazon reading device has been rumored for about a year or more now and has been referred to by the name "Kindle" (what name it will have when announced is unknown). Several other tech and e-book related sites are quoting and commenting on the report as well.

As one who has been reading e-books on a Palm handheld off-and-on for three years now, I believe this may represent one of several major initiatives that may finally start to bring e-books into the mainstream. As the leading online retailer, and one known particularly for its success in selling books, Amazon is uniquely positioned to promote and distribute e-books better than perhaps any other company save one (and I'll leave you to figure out which other company and product I am alluding to).

Over the last several years, there have been several obstacles that have kept e-books from taking off like digital music and video downloading have. One has been the lack of a proper, convenient, comfortably viewable, properly sized, affordable reading device. Another has been the lack of a standardized or otherwise universally recognized format for e-book files (as .mp3 has been for music). And a third, and perhaps most important, obstacle has been a major distribution platform for e-books (as iTunes has become for music and video and Amazon is for physical books).

While Sony's entry into e-book reading devices and online distribution last year was hailed as a major stepping stone for e-books, it has not panned out to be as successful as many had hoped. We'll see if Amazon has any better success. And we should know more about their reader and their plans come Monday.