Have you been thinking about getting a Kindle
for the Holidays this year, for yourself or someone on your shopping list? If so, you may have waited too late to get one before the end of the year. Two days after the mention on the Oprah show, the Kindle was listed as back-ordered, with a three to four week wait. This past weekend, the early holiday shoppers did the math and put in their orders - the backlog is now up to 11 to 13 weeks (that's right, three months, just as long as when it first released).I know some are claiming Amazon should have planned better, just as they complained when it was first released. But the popularity of the Kindle, just as with some other hot electronics of the current season and season's past, sometimes overwhelms the best planning (people are still waiting to get the WII Fit in many areas and even the WII console is only in stock now and then and it's been out even longer). Just as the initial year's worth of Kindles sold out in 5.5 hours when it was first released last year, it looks like another year's worth sold out due to the Oprah show and the holiday season. Those who have held out, hoping for a Kindle 2.0, should heed the official word from Amazon: there will be no NEW Kindle design out until 2009 AT THE EARLIEST. Sure, the speculators (who also seem to have a lot of pro-Apple iPhone articles on their blogs) keep mentioning that a new version will be out "soon", but it may be another year (or more) before a new hardware design hits the shelves.
In the meantime, reserve yours now and put an IOU under the tree. You can actually start purchasing books for the Kindle (unless it's a gift for someone not on your Amazon account, in which case you should make sure you check the box to mark it as a gift, so it doesn't register to your account) as soons as it ships (and maybe as soon as you order; I don't know about back-ordered ones), so that the IOU under the tree can be cashed in for a loaded Kindle, with books ready to read, right out of the box, when it does finally arrive.
