I don’t have a Kindle, but I have some friends who have and love them. Despite my general love of technology, so far I’ve preferred books. For a while (years ago) I tried reading the daily news on a Palm, but I didn’t like it.

Recently there’s been a lot of talk about formatting content for the Kindle. I think that’s a very good idea, and publishers should look into it. Along those lines, the good folk at Mequoda are doing a webinar on that topic.

But having said that, and despite it’s short-term success, I don’t see the Kindle as a long-term product. I have two reasons for this.

First, here’s my sane, sensible reason — Right now there’s a whole range of small devices, from the hand-helds, like Palms, Blackberries, iPhones and Droids, to the netbooks. I don’t see any reason why these other devices won’t be able to do everything a Kindle can do, so unless the Kindle starts to take phone calls, I think its utility as a substitute for the paperback has a narrow niche in the technology timeline.

Second, here’s my insane, wild-eyed prediction — I think there’s going to be a ground-breaking leap forward in display technology soon. I’m not sure if it will be digital paper (essentially a computer screen you can fold and put in your pocket) or some sort of projection display (either through eye-glasses or something else). But I don’t think screen-based computing is going to last all that long.

Having said all that, if I were in charge of developing the Kindle, I would look at getting college text books on the device. With the cost of college books these days, the idea of buying on device and a lot of electronic files sounds awfully good.