• Ad Age, Tuesday, February 10, 2009 10:30 AM

Amazon showed off its second iteration of the Kindle electronic reading device yesterday with only its second-ever press conference about the digital reader. Amazon's relative few press events and its silence on expectations for this latest launch did much to dial up anticipation and feed the frenzy, Rita Chang writes.

That Kindle has received massive hype without the support of traditional promotions speaks to Amazon's influence as the go-to for everything book-related and its ability to develop a mass market in itself. The only place the company has promoted the product aggressively is on its home page.

The bookseller showed off new features that pundits and blogs had widely expected. As an extra, author Stephen King will be releasing a novella available only on the e-reader. Amazon isn't budging on Kindle's $359 price tag, but analysts say if the online bookseller wants to kick up the device's adoption rates, pricing will be key. Users raced to the iPhone, for example, after Apple lowered the price of the handset to $199 from $599.

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