National Kindle and koffee Day

National Kindle & Koffee Day
June 6, 2009 10 am

This was first proposed by Kathy S on the Amazon Kindle Forum on May 21.

Pretty simple idea: if you owned a Kindle then show up at your local Starbucks (or other coffee shop if no Starbucks) on Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 10:00 am.

I've been reading the various Kindle forums since the recent comments by author, Alexie Sherman, about his disgust and loathing for the Kindle. I am interested in how rather diverse people come together over different things and form a community. And I've been an active member myself of several different virtual communities.

In some ways they are all alike, too. And those similarities, negative and positive, are much in evidence on the various Kindle boards.

But I found this idea of a National Kindle and Koffee Day to be particularly interesting.

For one thing it was conceived and proposed by a member of a board who was not associated with either Starbucks or Amazon. She simply owns and uses a Kindle and posts on the Amazon hosted boards.

For another is the national scope of the idea. It wasn't to be just a small, local area or even a state or a region but the entire United States. It could have been the entire world just as easily I suppose except that the Kindle really isn't the same outside the United States although there are some out in the wild.

I wondered if anyone would show up at my Starbucks but I had not made up my mind about whether I would attend or not. I think that was Wednesday last week. The time didn't really work out quite right for me. Usually I am in Starbucks earlier than that.

But I happened to mention it while I was in Starbucks on Wednesday. Immediately a barista told me that she really wanted a Kindle and would look forward to Saturday when she could look at one herself. So that sealed the deal for me and I decided to be there.

I didn't want to be alone so I tried to get my brother and my son to join me. But they both had other stuff to do.

So I showed up about 9:30 am and got my coffee and one of those new-to-us breakfast sandwiches. Those sandwiches are really good by the way and the one I get with low fat cheese and turkey bacon is pretty low calories actually.

No one else with a Kindle showed up. I kept mine out in plain view so that if anyone else had come in with one they would surely have seen me. I was sitting right near the order station.

The barista did come over for her hands on demonstration and another fellow came over as well. The barista said she was going to get one for Christmas and the other person said he was going to think about getting one sooner.

I posted about it on a thread on the Amazon boards after I returned home. As of the time I am writing this there are 55 people who have submitted 84 posts on the thread.

I wonder how many people actually will end up buying a Kindle. I wonder what will happen to Kindle "community" users if a lot more Kindles are sold.

At any rate I find the entire thing fascinating.