They say Amazon executives told them "high-end estimates on Kindle sales reported by TechCrunch and a Citigroup analyst are not reasonable." Writes one of the McAdams Wright Ragen analysts: "[Amazon execs] told us that the Kindle is definitely selling very well, but they also said the analysts and reporters giving out these extremely high estimates 'did not run them by company. Since we've never seen a Kindle in person, we're inclined to believe the Amazon executives when they say the Kindle isn't quite such a huge hit. But the suits might also be trying to keep expectations low enough to be easily surpassed.

A report from TechCrunch, which pegged Kindle sales so far this year at 240,000. "We acknowledge being 'out-sourced' by TechCrunch," Mahaney writes it his note, "But we believe the 240K number was well-sourced and believe reports of 40,000 shipments a month may also be reasonable."

The representatives declined to discuss sales numbers of the Kindle, only saying that it's generally first or second on the list of best selling items in the retailer's electronics category. And there was no information about demographics — a critical piece of data to book marketers, where the sheer number and breadth of subject matter in published titles, combined with limited marketing budgets, mean that niche audience appeals are critical.

Publishers receive 35 percent of the list price they set for titles per sale. However, larger publishers who move lots of physical units can probably negotiate better deals, and even get physical books converted to e-book format for free. But the Amazonians declined to comment on specifics due to antitrust concerns — belying their role as price-setter for the entire publishing market in print and otherwise.

Later, I dropped by the Amazon booth to see the Kindle in the wild. There were maybe three or four units on display, each closely held by a spokesperson. Visitors weren't even allowed to handle one of the devices for themselves, presumably for fear they'd walk away with one.

But giving them away might have been a smart move. Nothing sells the Kindle like the Kindle, not even the price cut to $359 from $399 that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos touted in his speech Friday. A three-figure price point simply won't get the devices into the hands of readers fast enough to make the market for content worthwhile for publishers anytime soon.

• On former White House spokesmonkey Scott McClellan's new book, which won't be back in physical stock until June 9 but is still available on the Kindle for $9.99: "One of the great things about electronic books — they don't go out of stock."
• Regarding reading on a laptop, Bezos asserted, "You certainly can't curl up in bed with one." Actually, our laptop has been our most faithful sleeping partner in years.
• Playing up the Kindle's ability to look up definitions on the fly. "I have discovered my vocabulary is not nearly as good as I thought it was ... I was living in a nice fantasy world where my contextual guesses were accurate."
• Of the 125,000 titles available as both physical books and Kindle e-books, six percent of the sales go to Kindle. Some, including Bezos, buy both a physical copy and an electronic copy — presumably because a Kindle full of books doesn't telegraph just how smart you are.
• Anderson asked by what factor the number of titles available on Kindle would grow by next year in Bezos estimation. "I wouldn't be happy with 20 million. I'm hard to make happy. Bwahahahaha!" (Bezos' laugh is surprisingly deep and loud for such a small man).
• Like Amazon's offering of used copies alongside new copies, it didn't change the amount of original sales, only expanded, suggesting it's not a zero-sum game. "Most people bought as many books as they previously bought, and plus they buy Kindle books."
• Explaining Amazon's strategy of only offering print-on-demand titles printed through BookSurge in its shipping discounts, he said it's because it's cheaper to pack multiple purchases in one box — hence POD books must be printed at Amazon fulfillment centers to qualify.
• Early in the discussion with Bezos, Anderson kept turning the conversation towards his"long tail" theory. Eventually, Bezos caught on, expounding on how Amazon's whole business model was based on niche content availability being a differentiator — shrewdly buttering up Anderson while subtly claiming credit for the idea.

Whether you want to meet at your local coffee shop, a public park, or your favorite watering hole is up to you. We hope you enjoy meeting your fellow Kindlers.

The company then trotted out the likes of Ian freed, Amazon.com's VP on the Kindle project, and Rikko Sakaguchi, SVP at Sony Ericsson, to explain how their devices were using Java. A Sun software engineer and designer showed off Java-powered apps, such as the ConnectedLife widget which travels from Facebook to desktop client to mobile device. (He did not mention that Facebook has dropped support for Java.) Green announced that the latest build of the Java software was available today, and that the developers suite, OpenJDK, now supports popular Linux distributions Ubuntu and Red Hat, with a Fedora release within a month.

A software-emulated mobile device was shown running Google's Android — presumably the two companies have made nice. But beyond the OpenJDK announcement, nary a word was spoken about the enterprise market and if any role for Java in datacenter applications was mentioned, I missed it. I was listening for Green or CEO Jonathan Schwartz to say something, anything, about the company's quarterly earnings and new revenue streams. Instead, he talked about how the latest Java releases will be free and open-source.

I guess the company will make their coin providing support to the device manufacturers who use the JavaME mobile platform or the JavaFX suite of multimedia tools — competing with other application development environments such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. Problem is, Sun's tools for content developers require a level of Java expertise well above that required by Adobe's easy-to-use Flash tools, and both Flash and Silverlight are also being licensed for free to device manufacturers. But hey, did we mention Neil Young?

It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore.

In addition to selling audiobooks through Amazon, since 2003 Audible has been the sole provider of audiobooks through Apple's iTunes store. Details of Apple and Audible's deal have not been made public, but we doubt that it will be renewed when it expires. For Amazon, this a bit of a broadside against Apple. Amazon launched a DRM-free music store last year and managed to sign up a number of record labels which have thusfar refused to offer DRM-free music on the iTunes store. The music-store arms race shows no signs of cooling down.

But what about the iPod, the natural destination for Audible's audiobooks? The Kindle, Amazon's recently released e-book reader, has a bare-bones MP3 player and could be a possible delivery mechanism for Audible's wares, as it has a wireless Internet connection built in — EVDO, not Wi-Fi, so it works almost anywhere.

Amazon is serious about digital distribution — and has a chance to challenge Apple's dominance in this market like no other digital store has.

Newsweek had an glowing exclusive review from Steven Levy and New York Times tech reviewer David Pogue wrote up the Kindle soon after it was made public, but it took Mossberg more than a week to review the device. What happened? Another tech columnist told us that Mossberg "was only interested in reviewing it if he could be first. When Steven Levy got it first Walt threw a tantrum." Classy. We also hear Mossberg tried to edge out other reviewers to be first on the iPhone — but got turned down. Incidentally, I still haven't gotten any response from Amazon PR about a review unit. What's up with that? I'll be nicer than Mossberg — maybe.

Kindle's definition "to ignite" is straightforward enough, but starting fires in the context of books? Fahrenheit 451, maybe, and we're hardly the first to point that out. But there just happens to be a famous quote using kindle and books in the same context that states exactly Bezos's vision ... by the 18th century philosopher and satirist François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire:

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

So why no Voltaire tributes? Either Amazon wanted to avoid associating the only-available-in-America device with the hated French, or Jeff Bezos hoped to keep all of the credit to himself. I'll assume the latter, and blame Bezos for the awkwardly named Kindle.

As the sole reviewer puts it:

This is a rather embarrassing electronic version of Time Magazine. There are NO pictures, no charts, no illustrations. Instead whenever you run into an article that has these in any decent amount, they've inserted an entry telling you to go get a PDF or print version. The salvation here is that their MOBILE web site at least has some images (even if impossibly small) and seems better formatted and organized. It looks and feels like some cheap RSS reader collected this rather than being an electronic version of the magazine. To fix it they should include all major article pictures, along with a full-screen copy of the cover. Time without pictures, is like the Braille-edition of Playboy. No wonder it is just $1.49 a month.

Kindle supporters may be willing to overlook this flaw, but Amazon cannot afford to. Amazon is depending on subscription revenues derived mostly from newspapers, magazines, and blogs to subsidize its free Internet connectivity. If image-rich content, including most magazines, fail to catch on, it could be a serious blow to Amazon's plans to make Kindle profitable.

Of course, all Kindle subscription content comes with a free 14-day trial, so we may soon see the text-heavy Times falling next week as well, since the free Web version is also accessible from the device. (The Journal, whose website still charges for now, may hold out longer.) Can books, a one-time purchase, keep Kindle lit? Jeff Bezos must hope so. The modern day Charles Dickens has yet to make an appearance.

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The short version, if you don't have the patience, or morbid curiosity, to watch the video: Bobby hasn't had much time with the Kindle yet, but he's already more in love with it than the Tablet PC he ceaselessly hawked while he was employed by Microsoft. Maybe he's trying to get a job that moves him back to Seattle?

I'm walking around my neighborhood, I didn't do anything, my buddy Jeff Bezos says "Hi" to me, Hi Jeff, I live by a beautiful golf course, it looks like a book, oh I see, I'm going through a menu, hey Donald Trump, God, this is better than a Tablet PC or a cellphone.