Top 10 Reasons The Apple iPad Will Put Amazon’s Kindle Out of Business

Editor's note : Ever since yesterday's debut of Apple's iPad, the debate has been raging about what it means for Amazon's Kindle . Will it kill it? Will it not? Is comparing the two like comparing a computer to a typewriter ? To add fuel to the fire and, well, because we love top 10 lists, we present this guest post from Ben Elowitz , who comes down very firmly on the Kindle-is-kaput side of the debate. Ben is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint , a media company with an audience of 10 million monthly unique users; and author of the Digital Quarters blog. Prior to Wetpaint, he co-founded Blue Nile (NILE), the largest online retailer of fine jewelry. 1) The multi-functional capability. Buy a Kindle and you get… a reader. Another dedicated device to carry. Buy an iPad, and you get a whole new companion that can do pretty much anything. Games, movies, browsing, documents, and more—all in one. And zillions of iPhone apps. It’s sooooo much more than a reader, it’s a whole-life device. 2) The screen. Full color, multi-touch screen, gestures, and more. It’s a pleasure to look at it – and we all can rely on Steve Jobs’ aesthetics to know that it’s a pleasure to hold as well . 3) The compatibility. iPad supports ePub out of the box, overcoming publishers’ resistance to having to support a proprietary format such as Kindle’s; and creating compatibility with books sold through a leading standard format through any channel. (Something tells me Amazon will be making an announcement about ePub support real soon…)