Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon’s new commercial puts the Kindle in the best possible light: poolside, in the hands of a beautiful, bikini-clad woman. It even works in a dig at the iPad and other LCD tablets; the dweeby guy next to the Kindle reader can only see his own ugly reflection.

This video has been percolating around the tech blogosphere for a couple of days, but I don’t think anyone has gotten it quite right. (I was off yesterday. Sorry.) I honestly don’t think it’s about competing with the iPad, or touting the benefits of non-reflective screens, as much as it’s about re-positioning the Kindle in the popular imagination.

Think back three years to when the Kindle was first announced. Yes, there was a splashy cover story about the future of reading. But everyone agreed: the device itself was ugly, it was expensive, and its market was limited to rich bookwormy dorks who needed something to read on airplanes. There, the physical world could vanish, leaving behind the virtual mindspace of a not-quite-real book.

Now, the Kindle is stylish; it’s relatively inexpensive; and the world in which you read from it doesn’t look like a place you’d want to escape from at all. That is, apart from your nosy neighbors and their self-involved not-quite-pickup lines.

See Also:

• Amazon Kindle Third Generation With 3G + Wi-Fi
• Photos: Putting Kindle 2 and Kindle 3 Head-to-Head
• You Can Read Manga On Your Kindle With Mangle
• Why Does the New Kindle Have A Microphone?
• Pictures: Kindle and iPad Screens Under Microscope
• Could a $50 'Paperback' Kindle Beat the iPad?
• The iPad Will Violate the Kindle's Space, And Other First …
• Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for E-Readers