My Take, by Tim Chemacki

After hearing about the Amazon Kindle for the PC, I immediately downloaded and installed the application on my desktop and laptop. Heck, FREE is a lot cheaper than the Kindle hardware, right?

What I like about the Kindle concept is the ability to keep a bunch of books all in one place without having to drag around an entire bookshelf. But, I really do not want a separate gadget (though a Kindle is easier to read on than a PC), nor can I really afford to buy a new gadget right now. So the free PC software sounded like a good way to get started.

Right off the bat, I found a couple free, short Star Wars novels which I promptly "purchased" and downloaded to my Kindle software (I've read the first already). Next, I purchased a web programming book which I've begun reading.

The Kindle software for the PC is functional, and easy to use. It's extremely basic. You can essentially only:

• View your list of books,
• Read a book (i.e., move forward or backward, jump to sections with hyperlinks or use "Go To..." to jump to a page),
• Change the font size and number of words per line,
• Add bookmarks, and
• View Notes, Highlights, and Bookmarks

I've never used the Kindle hardware, so I can't really compare it to that. When I read part of a book on one instance (e.g., my laptop) and then open the book on the other, I get the option to jump to where I left off. That feature is a definite must have. However, I have to say that it really needs the ability to highlight and annotate text--particularly for textbooks. The Amazon Kindle for the PC web page states:

Thanks to Whispersync, you can already read your notes and highlights from other devices on Kindle for PC. We'd like to add the ability to create notes and highlights using the Kindle for PC application.

So, at least it seems like this functionality is in the works, which is good to hear.

Overall, I like the Amazon Kindle for the PC though I'm looking forward to the future enhancements and the Mac OSX version. I'd love a Kindle DX for Christmas too, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that.

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Amazon.com recently added the ability for us to quickly and easily post affiliate links to products to our Twitter stream (or any microblog for that matter). While I think this is a great development, it also brings a question to mind: how do you disclose that a link is an Amazon.com affiliate link when you're limited to only 140 characters per post? Those who don't disclose--especially individuals like Robert Scoble who have thousands of followers and the potential to influence purchases--could see a backlash.

My plan for my own Twitter stream is to only post affiliate links to products that I have used and recommend or that I think I would like. Additionally, I plan to add links somewhat sparingly and in the general context of the things that interest me and my followers I certainly do not want my Twitter stream to seem like spam!

Here are some ideas for disclosure:

• Include a blanket disclosure in your profile (may be hard to fit since profile also limited to 160 characters!).
  
• Include a hashtag or something similar in each post with an affiliate link: examples: #ad, #sponsor, [ad], #affiliate, etc.
  
• Always precede or follow-up with a disclosure post. This is somewhat clumsy and repetitive.
• Don't bother with disclosure at all.
  

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I just wanted to give a hat-tip to Ben Zittlau for his post on how to configure your Posterous blog on a Dreamhost-hosted domain. His post was just what I needed to configure a subdomain on my web site to act as a custom URL for my Posterous blog. The only difference is that to configure your blog on a subdomain, you will delete the 'fully-hosted' feature for just the specific subdomain--i.e., "subdomain.yourdomain.com" versus just "yourdomain.com".

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I've been hearing a lot lately about Posterous, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's my first post, essentially just to set up my account. What what I've been hearing, this thing has potential...especially since it's drop-dead simple to use!

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