The Social

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Ben Mezrich's new book "The Accidental Billionaires," a dramatic and contested account of the early days of social network Facebook, is on the fast track to Hollywood.

But Thursday night's inaugural public event for the book, which first hit stores on Tuesday, was a humble affair well suited to this relatively quiet university town. Held in the Brattle Theatre, a basement-level space in a 120-year-old brick building just off Harvard Square, Mezrich was interviewed on a small stage by Scott Stossel, managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly, his onetime roommate, and a fellow Harvard alumnus.

"It's kind of cool, because the book is about two geeky, gawky kids who couldn't meet girls at Harvard, and we were two geeky, gawky kids who couldn't meet girls at Harvard," Mezrich joked to the audience. But the two writers have a crucial difference: Mezrich, whose last book "Bringing Down The House" was adapted into the movie "21," is inspired more by Hollywood thrillers than by the tactics of investigative journalism. Stossel's brethren in the media world, meanwhile, have been some of Mezrich's harshest critics.

"I believe clearly (that) what I do is nonfiction," Mezrich asserted onstage. "I interview sources, I get thousands of pages of court documents, I learn everything about the scene I'm going to write...it infuriates certain types of old-school journalists. They don't understand my style. My readers understand my style."

Criticism of Mezrich runs the gamut from disapproval over his penchant for scandal to outright accusations of fabricating the truth. "I think they're angry people," Mezrich said of his critics on Thursday. "Of course the industry's tough right now."

If you ask him, he says he's never had to "admit" to the use of composite characters and reconstructed dialogue and scenes because he's always disclosed them in the forewords of his books. "Accidental Billionaires" was under particular scrutiny long before its publication, largely because it's a book about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told from the perspective of the people who have some of the most public beef with him.

"I knew Eduardo had an axe to grind," he says of Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who had a legal falling-out with Zuckerberg and then served as one of the primary sources for "Accidental Billionaires" (and the only one whom Mezrich will confirm as a source). "It was easy to see right away that Eduardo was very angry with Mark, but I was fascinated."

One thing's for sure: it's all perfect fodder for the film industry. The book was optioned into a movie before Mezrich had written any more than a proposal, and he says he was literally handing chapters to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin as they were completed.

"I won't write a book that I don't think has movie potential," Mezrich said on Thursday evening. "If a book can't be a movie, it's very hard to make a living out of it."

Now, with director David Fincher ("Fight Club") reportedly at the helm, and production slated to begin later this year, it's all about the movie, which has the working title of "The Social Network." Mezrich says he believes the movie will be shot on location in Boston--tax laws passed recently in Massachusetts make it very friendly to filmmakers--but said he's not sure if Harvard will consent to let the film crew on campus. The 2007 Denzel Washington film "The Great Debaters" was the first movie in nearly two decades for which Harvard permitted on-campus filming; the previous one, 1979's "A Small Circle of Friends," was kicked off in mid-filming because it caused a commotion.

Walking around Harvard Square on Thursday, Cambridge wasn't visibly captivated by either the book or the movie. Harvard, after all, is an elite institution with countless notable alumni and dozens of movies set on its campus. And it's not clear just how much of a hit "Accidental Billionaires" has been in its first few days, since publisher Doubleday is not yet disclosing sales data. But the book briefly rocketed into Amazon's top 100, and on Friday morning "Accidental Billionaires" was hovering somewhere between 125 and 175 on the charts.

And bookstores near Harvard Square say it's been a fast local success. "It's selling well. Very well," chirped the woman who was staffing the information desk at "the Coop," the Harvard and MIT bookstore cooperative, when asked on Thursday afternoon. "There's local interest. Facebook is big, and it was two Harvard guys right here." She speculated that other local bookstores would have similar results to report.

A few blocks away, at the independent Harvard Book Store, an attendant behind the information desk stressed that "Accidental Billionaires" had only been in stores for a few days, but said "it's definitely selling." The Harvard Book Store was the host for Mezrich's event later that evening at Brattle Theatre, and the bookstore employee surmised, "I expect we'll sell a lot tonight."

Next to him, a second Harvard Book Store employee was on the phone, fielding one phone call after another from people who were interested in purchasing last-minute tickets for Mezrich's reading that night.

Things were quite different on Thursday afternoon at the Cambridge, 1 pizzeria on Church Street, a high-ceilinged, wood-paneled space that overlooks a cemetery and was playing songs by the Clash and Phoenix over its speakers. The restaurant features prominently in "Accidental Billionaires" as the restaurant where Zuckerberg originally tells Saverin about his idea for Facebook, but the staff wasn't yet aware of "Accidental Billionaires," let alone had they heard anything about movie location scouts poking their noses around.

"Accidental Billionaires" has caused less of a splash in Silicon Valley, too, than some expected, likely because most of the scandal and gossip concerning Facebook's origins was already common knowledge to anyone who followed the course of the ConnectU v. Facebook legal battle over the site's intellectual property.

"There were definitely things that were told to me that I decided not to put in there," Mezrich told CNET News by phone on Friday, mentioning specifically the scene that depicts the events leading to Facebook executive Sean Parker's arrest for alleged cocaine possession, which Parker has called a "misunderstanding." "There were a couple things, certainly the Sean Parker scene where he's at the party...you don't really know what's going on there, and you might get sources telling you what went on there, and you've got to be careful with a scene like that."

Mezrich isn't concerned that the content of the book and movie won't be new and juicy enough for audiences. "Of the 250 million people who use Facebook, 249 million of them know nothing of its origins," he told CNET News. "Silicon Valley is a very small, insulated community."

And the real focus of "Accidental Billionaires" isn't Silicon Valley, it's the aspirational boy-genius narrative that has repeatedly captivated the author. Perhaps the most interesting part of Mezrich's onstage discussion with Stossel on Thursday night was how deep his interest in Facebook is ("I've been going on news programs and saying Facebook is the next step in human evolution," he told CNET News the next day). Mezrich speaks with passion and admiration for his protagonists because, as a self-professed "geeky, gawky kid who couldn't meet girls at Harvard," he sees their narratives as vicarious--a word he used multiple times in the event at Brattle Theatre--as the sort of dream he wished he could have lived at their age.

"If I see a young 22-year-old who has a Ferrari, I'm always wanting to hang out with him to find out why he has a Ferrari," Mezrich, who says he has wanted to be a writer since the age of 12 and used to display "hundreds" of publisher rejection letters on his wall, explained onstage at the interview.

But in his uber-meta quest to fulfill his professional dream by writing accounts of other nerdy outsiders achieving fortune and notoriety, Mezrich admits he has burned bridges--and not just with journalists who consider his tactics to be shady. While he has stayed very close with some of the subjects of his past books, he says that he is on shaky terms with others, and that contact with Eduardo Saverin was cut off a quarter of the way into the production of "Accidental Billionaires."

'"He was telling me the story, telling me the story, and then abruptly stopped telling me the story," Mezrich said, adding that it was right around when gossip blog Gawker posted leaked screenshots from his book proposal that effectively outed Saverin as one of his sources. "(Saverin and Facebook) were in the midst of a massive lawsuit, and I'm sure there were reasons he stopped talking to me...I got a letter from his lawyer (saying) that he's not talking to me anymore."

Then there's Mark Zuckerberg.

"I did not talk to Mark Zuckerberg," Mezrich told the audience at the Brattle Theatre on Thursday, reiterating the point that he makes in the introduction to "Accidental Billionaires." "I tried for a year. It was like 'Waiting for Godot,' almost talking to Mark and almost talking to Mark and in the end he was terrified of what I was going to write. He's very protective of himself, and he didn't have control of the story, and in a way I think the story is better this way."

He said that he has not heard from Zuckerberg, or from Facebook beyond its standard statements ("Every time I do a news event...they've already sent over their statement") but said very explicitly that neither Zuckerberg nor Facebook ever tried to pay him off to stop work on the book after an audience member at the Brattle Theatre reading asked if that had happened. He hasn't heard reactions from the ConnectU founders or Sean Parker, and he also told CNET News that he hasn't heard anything from Michael Moritz, the Sequoia Partners venture capitalist whom Parker, in Mezrich's narrative, likens to "a James Bond villain."

Meanwhile, he says he hasn't yet read Sorkin's screenplay or been privy to any details about casting. But with regard to the two young actors whose names have been whispered about as possible choices to play Zuckerberg, the author says he'd like to see them both cast.

"Personally, I think Michael Cera would make an awesome Mark Zuckerberg," Mezrich told CNET News on Friday, "and Shia LaBeouf would make an awesome Sean Parker."

Amazon.com has filed for a number of patents that hint at ad-supported books for its Kindle e-reader--more specifically, a free or discounted ad-supported e-book for customers who buy the physical version.

Amazon Technologies, a subsidiary of Amazon, filed for a patent ("Method and system for access to electronic version of a physical work based on user ownership of the physical work") in December 2006. It was approved last month and makes it possible for buyers of a physical book to have an e-book bundled with it.

But two additional patents, filed a year later by Amazon employees (and not yet approved), are the more interesting ones: these, according to MediaPost, "clearly note that Amazon would insert advertisements throughout the e-books, from the beginning to the end, between chapters or following every 10 pages, as well as in the margins."

It looks like the story first surfaced on Slashdot last Friday.

Presumably, this could be a way to guide potential Kindle customers through the transition--which some find daunting--from consuming primarily physical books to digital ones, subsidizing the price of either or both of them in the process.

Ad money would be an additional revenue stream for Amazon too.

This post was updated at 10:14 a.m. PT.

This review contains some spoilers about the plot of "The Accidental Billionaires," but most of them are common knowledge to people familiar with Facebook's history.

(Credit: Doubleday)

There's a reason why there aren't more lurid tell-all books about Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial elite: Generally, their lives are kind of a yawn.

Author Ben Mezrich attempts to prove that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is an exception to the rule in "The Accidental Billionaires," a testosterone-flavored tome of beach reading that hits stores on July 14. CNET News obtained an advance copy.

Telling the tale of Facebook's origins from late-night Harvard dorm room project to Silicon Valley start-up hotshot, "Accidental Billionaires" is neither a hard-hitting analysis nor a shocking expose of Facebook's origins. It also, um, isn't great literature. ("The thing that would drive this social network was the same thing that drove life at college--sex. Even at Harvard, the most exclusive school in the world, it was all really about sex. Getting it, or not getting it.")

And for digital-media enthusiasts who have been following Facebook's drama over the years--from the lawsuit on behalf of rival social network ConnectU, to the company's early days courting investors in Silicon Valley--there isn't a whole lot that will be particularly surprising. Most of the scandal in "Accidental Billionaires" was already in print, either thanks to court documents or investigative reports like the one on behalf of the now-defunct Harvard alumni magazine "02138."

But none of that really matters: "The Accidental Billionaires" is one of those books that exists to be turned into a movie. And the film adaptation of this one has been in development since before Doubleday was willing to confirm itself as the book's publisher. Mezrich's previous book, "Bringing Down The House," a similar tale of brilliance and treachery among students at an elite university, was turned into the hit movie "21." For the as-yet-untitled adaptation of "The Accidental Billionaires," "Fight Club" director David Fincher is reportedly on board to direct, and "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin has been charged with the screenplay. Sorkin is known for deft dialogue, which is good: "Billionaires" contains very little.

That's because Mezrich, himself a Harvard alumnus, was working mostly with second-hand sources: Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook did not sanction or cooperate with the production of the book.

This is most obvious when you pick up on the fact that the narrative almost never depicts Zuckerberg alone, and is told primarily from the perspectives of three people who dealt with him during Facebook's early days--schoolmate and co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and eventual Facebook exec Sean Parker, and ConnectU co-founder Tyler Winklevoss. Scenes relying heavily on Zuckerberg's own actions tend to be bolstered by actual e-mails or blog posts written by the young CEO. Whenever Zuckerberg is actually doing something lascivious, be it hooking up with a girl or hacking into Harvard servers, it's laced with the language of disclaimers and speculation. ("Eduardo was pretty sure he'd just watched Mark Zuckerberg go home with a Victoria's Secret model.")

Zuckerberg: Evil nerd or dreamy visionary?
Is it at least entertaining? That depends on your literary proclivities--and your penchant for scandal. It's a colorful book, but those who were hoping that Zuckerberg would come across as an evil, conniving nerd will be a tad disappointed. He's portrayed as a dreamy visionary who devolves into a my-way-or-the-highway megalomaniac, at least from the perspectives of Saverin, Parker, and Winklevoss. But that megalomania is given the kid-glove treatment, likely because Mezrich was dealing with so much second-hand information, and the author even states in one chapter told from Saverin's perspective that "Mark didn't have the capacity, or the interest, to hate anyone."

It's fluffy "lad lit," so character depth isn't particularly front-and-center. The Winklevoss twins, who were in talks to employ Zuckerberg as a programmer and then alleged that he stole their business plan and code when he developed Facebook on his own, are rarely depicted in a setting that doesn't involve training for crew (remember, the two eventually went to the Olympics last year) or stuffing their faces in the dining hall after practice. Rowing is depicted with more than a slight hint of eroticism, with the adjective "phallic" applied to the Winklevosses' two-man boat, and Tyler Winklevoss described at the end of a race as "body sagging as he leaned forward, exhausted, his callused hands loosening against the now impotent oars." Oh, my.

And much ado is made of Sean Parker's bad-boy reputation while Mezrich's narrative simultaneously refutes it (he's portrayed as a skinny high school dropout with severe food allergies who happens to wind up at the wrong parties on a regular basis), as when the book implies that his arrest for cocaine possession was not only "a misunderstanding," as Parker has claimed, but goes through Parker's thought process as he considers that Zuckerberg may have set the whole thing up in order to oust him from his post as president of Facebook. Parker has declined to comment on whether he was one of Mezrich's sources for the book, but its treatment of him is rather exonerative. If Parker wasn't a source, someone very close to him was.

Beyond that, few players in Facebook's history have much of a role in the book. Early employees like Chris Hughes (who went on to be the Obama campaign's digital guru), Dustin Moskowitz, and Andrew McCollum make brief appearances, as does investor Peter Thiel. Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard alum who founded another social-networking project around the same time and has had legal issues with Zuckerberg over the rights to the use of the word "facebook," is given a few mentions. There's also a cameo by Bill Gates, who really did speak at Harvard in February 2004--that wasn't just a plot device.

Early rumors about "The Accidental Billionaires" suggested that Mezrich was particularly liberal with fact-checking, and while it looks like some of this was constrained by, you know, laws, there are a few obvious inaccuracies. A scene set in 2004 has Sean Parker griping to himself about Valleywag, the Silicon Valley gossip blog that didn't exist until 2006. And while Zuckerberg's longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, is alluded to a few times, it's implied (though not explicitly stated) that she didn't start dating Zuckerberg until Facebook had made him an on-campus celebrity; Facebook insiders say the two were already dating well before Zuckerberg founded Facebook.

In his introduction, Mezrich acknowledges that he's dealing with "a number of different--and often contentious--opinions about some of the events that took place." And it's clear he was careful with the handling of those situations, much in the way that a celebrity gossip magazine can report on the latest reports of Brangelina's demise without facing the Hollywood couple's legal team. On the bright side, that means the book probably isn't as factually dubious as it could have been, but it also means that Zuckerberg and Saverin aren't the world's most compelling protagonists. There's a reason there aren't more bestsellers about computer geeks.

"A James Bond villain"
If any legal action does stem from "The Accidental Billionaires," I'm guessing it won't come from Zuckerberg. There are few characters portrayed with legitimate, all-out negativity, but one of them is Sequoia Capital investor Michael Moritz, against whom Sean Parker is depicted as having a personal vendetta. Sequoia had invested in Parker's previous company, Plaxo, from which Parker departed under unfavorable terms; several chapters told from Parker's perspective describe Moritz as "a James Bond villain" who pushed Parker out of Plaxo's executive ranks after (it's implied) hiring a private investigator to stalk him and hunt down dirt.

In Mezrich's narrative, Parker imagines Moritz "stewing in his secluded lair, shouting at his peons in that bizarre, villainous Welsh accent," and allegedly sets up Zuckerberg's now-infamous Sequoia pitch meeting (in which Zuckerberg showed up late wearing pajamas) specifically to botch any chance that the venture firm would have to invest in Facebook.

Whether that's true or not, one can imagine Sequoia may not be too thrilled.

But as for Facebook? Undoubtedly, the social network has lawyers at the ready, but going after "Accidental Billionaires" would probably be a waste of time: Nothing in this book could come close to ruining Mark Zuckerberg, a young man who has already made more than a name for himself in Silicon Valley. Maybe we've all grown so immune to the presence of rampant celebrity gossip and speculation that it simply isn't that easy to drop a real character bomb. Or maybe it's just that, no matter how hard an author may try, the lives of Silicon Valley's glitterati simply aren't as salacious as those of Hollywood or D.C.

Eduardo Saverin, whom Mezrich thanks in his introduction for being crucial to the development of the book, has been on shaky terms with Facebook for years, and some of the conflict between Saverin and Zuckerberg that "Accidental Billionaires" details can be confirmed through courtroom documents. But Facebook, as Mezrich notes in his epilogue, now has returned Saverin to the official list of company co-founders on its Web site, and Saverin has also invested in at least one start-up based on the Facebook developer platform.

"Some of the writing about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook is more accurate than others," a statement released by Facebook about the book read. "This book appears to fall in the 'others' category. We think future efforts will tell a better and more accurate story."

That said, it probably won't have hilariously over-the-top narrative gems like this one: "What happens when the guy next to you catches a lightning bolt? Does it carry you up to the stratosphere along with him? Or do you simply get charred trying to hold on?"

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen...the soaring heights of Silicon Valley drama.

(Credit: Doubleday)

David Fincher is in "advanced talks" to direct the Columbia Pictures movie about the origins of Facebook, according to Variety.

The movie, based on Ben Mezrich's upcoming "The Accidental Billionaires," was written by "The West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin. It's being produced, Variety reported Tuesday, by Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca along with Dana Brunetti and actor Kevin Spacey. Variety said the movie is called "The Social Network." We hear this is a very preliminary working title. (It, obviously, could also be called "Accidental Billionaires.")

Fincher's past directorial work includes "Fight Club," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and "Panic Room."

An entertainment industry source tells CNET News that early casting searches are under way and that the list of young actors being eyeballed to play Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg includes both Michael Cera ("Superbad," "Arrested Development") and Shia LaBeouf ("Transformers"). They aren't the only ones, and it's not clear whether either of those two in-demand actors would want to take a turn away from comedies (Cera) or action movies (LaBeouf) to play Zuckerberg.

Cera is, according to the source, a top choice because audiences find him particularly likable. Rumors about the plot of the book "Accidental Billionaires" hint that Zuckerberg is going to be portrayed rather unfavorably--basically, as an obnoxious nerd--and obnoxious nerds are not the world's biggest box-office sell. Cera could make the part a little bit more sympathetic.

But in LaBeouf's favor, I saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" last night, and the guy really does sound a lot like Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, Facebook itself reportedly isn't thrilled. The social network consistently hasn't commented publicly about "Accidental Billionaires" and is said to have warned employees not to talk to anyone affiliated with the movie.

(Credit: Doubleday)

This one sure snuck up on us: "The Accidental Billionaires," author Ben Mezrich's presumably tawdry take on Facebook's origins, is hitting bookshelves on July 14.

Last we'd heard, it was getting released this fall.

You probably know the plot by now: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Harvard classmate Eduardo Saverin ( a co-founder who is no longer affiliated with Facebook and has had some legal beef with Zuckerberg over the years) allegedly started the site to meet women. In due time, they got rich and out of control. Or at least that's how Mezrich, famed for his tales of wild, young success at elite universities, writes it. A leaked book proposal last year showed some signs of inaccuracies.

A columnist at The Daily Beast has already named it one of her "13 Hottest Summer Reads." And actor Kevin Spacey, who produced and starred in "21," the film adaptation of Mezrich's book "Bringing Down The House," wrote a blurb for Amazon.com about it.

"'The Accidental Billionaires' is the perfect pairing of author and subject," Spacey summarized. "It's pure summer fun--a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit."

I'm taking "lad lit" to mean "chick lit for dudes." And it sure looks like a salacious read: the description on the cover reads "The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal." The artwork features two martini glasses--one full, with olives, the other partially smashed with a Harvard-logo cocktail stirrer lying beside it--and a red, lacy brassiere.

Apparently, it'll all get even juicier soon. Facebook reportedly isn't too pleased about the book's debut, and Hollywood veteran Aaron Sorkin has been tapped to handle the film adaptation.

UPDATE (10:36 a.m. PT): This probably goes without saying, but Facebook representatives have declined comment on the topic of "The Accidental Billionaires."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shows off the Kindle DX

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET News)

NEW YORK--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the much-anticipated large-screen Kindle e-reader in a lecture hall Wednesday at the downtown Pace University. Called the Kindle DX, the new device is geared toward readers of personal and professional documents, newspapers, and magazines--and textbooks, a potentially huge target market.

The debut of the bigger Kindle wasn't exactly a secret: rumors of a larger-screen Kindle had been around for quite some time, and concrete reports began to surface earlier this week.

Amazon's Kindle DX

(Credit: Amazon)

According to Amazon's Kindle DX page, the device has the following:

• A 9.7-inch display with 16 shades of gray. (The standard Kindle has a 6-inch display.)

• Capacity to hold up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents.

• An auto-rotating screen to show either portrait or landscape views.

• A built-in PDF reader.

• 3G wireless network support with no monthly fees or annual contracts.

• Battery capacity to "read for days without charging."

• Text-to-speech abilities to read publications aloud.

Several of those features are shared with the current Kindle 2, but several are unique to the Kindle DX: the native PDF reader that doesn't require the files to be converted, the rotating display, the 3,500-publication capacity compared to 1,500 for the Kindle 2, and of course the larger screen.

Leaked photos of the alleged 'Kindle DX' device from Amazon.

(Credit: Engadget)

Newspapers hoping the next version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader will be a savior for their beleaguered businesses are likely to be disappointed when it's unveiled Wednesday. But this Kindle could win plenty of converts in academia.

Amazon is slated to unveil a new, larger-screen version of the Kindle, which it originally launched late in 2007. Possibly called the Kindle DX, the new device is designed for reading newspapers, magazines, and textbooks, and it's expected to be part of new electronic course material test-runs at six universities this fall. The list, according to The Wall Street Journal, consists of Pace University (where Amazon is holding Wednesday's press conference), Case Western Reserve, Reed College, Arizona State University, the Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Princeton University--Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' alma mater, which already publishes Kindle textbooks.

This move makes loads of sense. Anyone who's been to a U.S. college in the past few decades could tell you that textbooks are very highly--some would say obscenely--priced. They're also bulky, and often difficult to get rid of once purchased: Selling the third edition of an introductory biology textbook on the used-book market is pretty difficult when the fourth edition comes out a year later. Theoretically, this should be the perfect market for an electronic reader like the Kindle.

But just because Amazon has inked a few deals with textbook companies, and a handful of prominent academic institutions, doesn't mean that hordes of incoming freshmen across the U.S. will be moving into dorms this fall with Kindles in hand.

"I do think the textbook market will be the killer app for e-readers," said Sarah Epps, a media analyst at Forrester Research. "(But) we think it's going to start to develop in 2011 and really pick up in 2013...We've been talking to publishers, talking to universities, and what we're seeing is that from the publisher perspective there's some hesitation."

Why's this? There are a lot of questions for the publishing industry, the biggest of which is whether electronic textbooks will take a bite out of the profits that manufacturers are making from paper textbooks. There's also the potential issue of licensed content in textbooks that might not have digital rights stipulated in its original agreement with the publishers. Then, as Epps pointed out, there's the Google problem.

For the past few years, Google has been pushing forward a book scanning and digitization project called Google Book Search, and though it has some prominent allies in the industry, to say that Google Book Search has been controversial would be putting it lightly. The Association of American Publishers sued the search giant in 2005 over potential copyright violations. Authors and publishers of out-of-print books have petitioned for royalties from digitized books. More recently, library industry trade groups have expressed concern in the form of a legal filing over what Google's efforts could mean for their business. An agreement in court has been delayed.

For Amazon, this could mean that it'll have to deal with some publishers who have become quite suspicious of large-scale digital book projects. But on the flip side, this could work to the Seattle-based retailer's advantage: if the digital shift is as inevitable as it appears, and Google is to be the Silicon Valley villain in this story, then Amazon, which has been in the book business for nearly two decades, could be the friendlier alternative.

There's also the potential for the new Kindle, whatever it's called, to have a significant impact outside the U.S. Forrester analyst Epps speculates that it will make waves in developing markets like China and India, where there are millions of university students with tight textbook budgets. "Using e-readers for textbooks would be incredibly empowering for students in their universities," Epps said, "but that's going to take some time."

It's clear that Amazon could shake up the twin pillars of educational publishing and academia with its new Kindle, potentially a much bigger splash than the launch of the original Kindle or its improved Kindle 2 successor earlier this year. What's less clear is how immediate the change will be. And what's even less clear is what impact the new, bigger Kindle will have on the market that everyone was expecting Amazon would target: print periodicals.

Rumor has it that The New York Times will be part of Wednesday's Kindle announcement, possibly lowering its price for a Kindle subscription. But this doesn't mean that Amazon's skinny gadget will suddenly save print media: Newspaper and magazine publishers may think they still get the short end of the stick.

"The way things work now, newspapers and magazines can distribute their content over the Kindle if they want, but it's not a very good model for them. Amazon is keeping the majority of the revenue," Epps said. "In addition, there are some business problems, like that publishers can't count subscribers toward their rate base, so it's diluting rather than adding to their subscription base from the perspective of the business."

But while Amazon has the textbook market in focus, it shouldn't let newspapers and magazines get away from it: this is somewhere that the manufacturer of a rival e-reader could sneak in.

"Some of the other device competitors that will be coming to the market over the next year may be more appealing partners for newspaper publishers," Epps said. "It's another distribution channel for their content, but not all distribution channels are created equal. So there could be a great opportunity for publishers to distribute their content on other types of e-readers, where they have a more favorable business model."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos holds up the Kindle 2 Monday in New York.

(Credit: David Carnoy/CBS Interactive)

NEW YORK--Were there an anthology of gadget launch announcements, the unveiling of Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reader would have one of the more anticlimactic storylines.

It started out like any other big press conference, with a line of reporters and photographers streaming out the door onto the chilly sidewalk outside the historic Morgan Library & Museum.

The Kindle 2's arrival had been preceded by the usual blog blitz of leaked photos, rumors, and breathless wish lists. (A color screen! Better PDF support! International versions of the Kindle store!) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage, Steve Jobs-style, with a slide show recap of the original Kindle's success before making the big debut.

But the announcement itself was underwhelming. The price, $359, remains the same. The battery life's been improved by about 25 percent. The Kindle 2 is much skinnier than its predecessor, slimming down to 0.36 inches in thickness from 0.7, but it's only a tenth of an ounce lighter. The storage capacity has jumped from 256MB to 2GB, or about 200 to 1,500 books, and the electronic ink display has improved from a 4-shade to 16-shade grayscale.

The layout of some of the buttons has been restructured, and the new Kindle also has a text-to-speech reader. In short, the improvements seem worthwhile, but there was no real curveball to give the Kindle a mainstream appeal.

(Credit: mobileread.com)

Update at 7:25 a.m. PST: Kindle 2 has been officially announced.

Amazon.com unveiled the second generation of its Kindle e-book reader during an event Monday morning at New York's Morgan Library and Museum.

The event started at 7 a.m. PST/10 a.m. EST, and we're updating it live below. Below the CoverItLive box, see photos of the new, $359 Kindle 2, which will start shipping February 24. (See also press release and Kindle 2 site.)

Amazon Kindle 2: Complete CNET coverage

Amazon Kindle 2 slideshow