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There is an interesting interview with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in the New York Times. It’s about the rapid growth of the Amazon Kindle electronic reader. Bezos claims that for every 100 physical books they sell, they sell 48 Kindle editions. He adds it won’t be long before digital sales outpace physical book sales. Amazon now has over 350,000 Kindle titles and they are adding thousands a week.

It is another example of how all content that can be digitized, will be digitized. Information wants to spread with the least friction possible. Physically printing and shipping a book is friction. It creates delays from the time something is thought and created to the time it is delivered. This isn’t conducive to the Internet Age when thought travels at the speed of light. I know many people may lament the diminution of physical books, but this form of content is simply following in the footsteps of music, movies, video, photos, and other information and entertainment mediums.

My Kindle DX will hold 3500 books. I can only imagine the capabilities and capacities of the Kindle 5, 6, or 7 somewhere down the line. It also makes me wonder what I will eventually do with all those shelves in my office and at home that now stand stuffed with books of past and present.