It was only the end of May when Amazon rolled out its Kindle With Special Offers program. Facing a new round of lower priced e-readers and growing pressure from Barnes & Noble's NOOK Color (which would subsequently go on to unseat the Kindle as the top selling e-reader), Amazon partnered with a variety of companies to offer lower priced Kindles that were effectively subsidized by advertising. In the case of the $189 Kindle 3G, you could shave $25 off the price tag by putting up with screen savers sponsored by a variety of companies. The actual reading functionality was unhindered by advertising, mind you, and Amazon also mailed out product discount coupons via the service, so some people were willing to accept the tradeoff.
For those of you who felt that $164 was still too a little steep, especially with the thought of having your e-reader display VISA ads when it's sitting on the coffee table between reading sessions, Amazon just upped the ante. Thanks to a partnership with AT&T (whose ads you will definitely be seeing among those sponsored screen savers), the Kindle 3G With Special Offers has dropped in price to $139, putting Amazon's top selling e-reader —complete with both Wi-Fi and free global 3G service— at the same price point as the recently introduced NOOK Simple Touch. Kindle Wi-Fi With Special Offers remains at $114, meaning you only pay a $25 premium for the free 3G connectivity (as opposed to $50 for the regular versions).
What do you think? If $25 wasn't enough to lure you into accepting advertising on your e-reader, will $50 off do it?
Press release here.
