In case you missed their guest appearance on Today, Jenna and Laura Bush have collaborated with an illustrator on Read All About It!, the $17.99, 32-page tale of math machine and science whiz Tyrone, a reluctant reader until the books that his teacher read to the class actually came to life. All five-star reviews so far, with the exception of one Zebo Quad, who opines: "This book just proves that celebrities could vomit onto a blank page and publishers would publish it." It also suggests Steve Jobs was onto something when he dissed the Amazon Kindle e-book reader:

"Had my first real appts. at HarperCollins this afternoon. Funny enough, the editors and I spent more time talking about my new Kindle than upcoming projects. The associate publisher even popped in to play with it. " [Pub Rants]

When Jeff Bezos and company reported Amazon.com's earnings at the end of last quarter, they swore the Kindle was flying off the shelves. But I've never seen one in the wild. Or even heard of a sighting. Until today when I saw, thanks to Silicon Alley Insider, a photo of a girl reading a Kindle on the New York subway. Take that, Kindle-hater Steve Jobs. Have you ever seen anyone using a Newton on the subway?

Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of e-book publisher RosettaBooks, says Kindle-compatible e-books will not outsell Sony Reader-compatible books published by his house in 2008. This despite the fact that Amazon.com execs told analysts Kindle sales were "outpacing our expectations" — and Amazon appears to be skewing search results on the site in Kindle's favor.

For years, retailers have given preferential shelf space to certain products — sometimes because they are higher margin, or because the manufacturer has paid for that placement. Should Amazon.com be any different? During the holiday season, the online retailer listed its Kindle e-reader at the very top in search results for "sony reader." Clever! Even better, a search for "kindle" doesn't mention its Sony competitor at all. My personal favorite? A number of customers have tagged the Kindle with "sony reader." That's what loser-generated content gives you, I guess.

What's the value of the spoken word? $300 million, according to Amazon.com, which just purchased the leading digital audiobook reseller, Audible.com. The amount is a premium of more than 20 percent on yesterday's closing price. The purchase of Audible, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary, shows that Amazon is serious about digital content. Amazon has sold Audible's audio downloads since May 2000, and the purchase is a natural fit as Amazon offers more content via digital delivery. But what does it mean for the consumer?

Remember the comparisons between Amazon's Kindle and the iPod? Don't try them on Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The Kindle was a bad idea, Jobs told the New York Times after yesterday's Macworld keynote. "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. "Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore." Mmhmm, Mr. Jobs. And whose fault is that?

Kindle is Amazon's new digital reading device that costs $400. But author Daniel Oran has thankfully found a (very) slightly more interesting use for the thing: readers can download the almost-final draft of his novel, Believe, for 99 cents. It's like a novel beta-test! He hopes his friends, at least, will download. Perhaps coincidentally, the novel is "a story about ripples: how the actions of one person can affect so many others." Like if one person buys a book and tells a friend and tells another friend who happens to know a producer on Oprah...

Maybe Jeff Bezos does have a hit on its hands. TechCrunch notes that the sold-out Amazon Kindle is selling for up to $1,500 on eBay. Didn't these people skim Robert Scoble's review of the e-book reader? Or Walt Mossberg's slam? Both say the thing's a piece of crap. For the same $1,500 you can buy a well-equipped MacBook, or almost four iPhones. When the thing first came out, I considered buying one, but didn't think it was worth $400. I guess I was wrong. At these prices, it's practically the new Nintendo Wii.

Ahh, that feels good right there. I don't think we'll be talking about this week next week. The Facebook pile-on continued. Amazon's Kindle reader suffered a surprise media backlash. I'd hoped for another bank-employee-in-tutu photo to liven things up. Instead we got Gerstmanngate. At least we still have jobs — oh wait, Valleywag party girl Megan "Leggy" McCarthy is heading to Wired. I think I'll go curl up in the tub with my INVISIBLE PUPPY. (Photo by Jason Calacanis)

Walt Mossberg, surprisingly slow out of the gate, has finally deigned to review Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader. He was not kind, calling it "mediocre" and "marred by annoying flaws." He also says that Amazon "nailed the electronic-book shopping experience," which is no surprise given the success of Amazon.com, "but it has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices." Harsh words from a top reviewer who can make or break a device. Here's our question: what took him so long?

I know I'm not the only one thinking Amazon.com's e-book reader Kindle sounds more like kindling, something that should be burned, rather than something that ignites ideas and revolutions — a problem that a good naming myth, well told, will not easily overcome. Fortunately for Bezos, Charlie Rose can't help but interrupt his guests and provide the answers to his own questions. In an interview, the CEO fumbled through the origin of the e-book reader's name. But why is Jeff Bezos completely failing to tell the true, compelling, and literary origins of the Kindle name?

A week after launching, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal remain the bestsellers for Amazon.com's e-reader, Kindle, but Time magazine has dramatically fallen to 12th place and continues to fall. Why? The display technology, eInk, is better than traditional displays at approximating the experience of text on a page, but the high-contrast, monochromatic screen is lousy at displaying images. The Kindle version of Time omits the images because of this, and Time magazine's appeal is as much in pictures as in words.

"The runners-up — Amazon Clunk-o-matic, Amazon Yet Another Gadget to Carry, Amazon Your Laptop Can Already Display e-Books But, Hey, This Ugly-Ass Thing Has a State-of-the-Art-Circa-1993 Black-and-White Screen — were all deemed too cumbersome." — Simon Dumenco on alternate names for the Amazon Kindle. [AdAge]

Before Jonathan Ive, there was Robert Brunner, the designer behind Apple's original, iconic PowerBook. Brunner, who left design firm Pentagram this summer and now has a new product-design studio, Ammunition, worked with Amazon.com's Lab126 unit, also staffed with Apple veterans, to design the Kindle e-book reader, a source tells us.

The future is digital! Print will never die! Media barons proved again this week that mixing a cocktail of print and digital, old and new, hot and cool media makes a tepid and kinda gross drink. Kinda like a Chocolate martini! It was a short but complicated week, chock full of conflicting messages about atoms and bytes. Let's recap!

Currently, the top three bestselling titles for Amazon.com's Kindle, Jeff Bezos's tree-killer killer, are newspapers and magazines: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine. Despite the fear that newspapers and magazines are dying, they are the most popular purchase on the future's book killer. These traditional publications are all available online, mostly for free. Kindle purchasers, in other words are spendthrift, hyperliterate gadget junkies who feel guilty about both the environment and the demise of old media. Who besides Craig Newmark is buying this thing? I can't wait to I buy a $20 Kindle on eBay — a past reminder of a failed future.

Somebody bleach Saul Hansell's hair and hand him some eyeliner. He wants you to LEAVE JEFF BEZOS ALONE! After Amazon.com shoppers and a few gadget reviewers slammed Bezos's latest pet project, the Kindle e-reader, the New York Times reporter has blogged "In Defense of Kindle." His main point is that the Kindle is a version 1.0 product which will improve over time. A touchscreen, for example, would improve the user interface. Hansell argues that some of Kindle's "missing" features — color, email, and ads — would make the device better, not worse. Yesterday, you saw our side-by-side comparison of the Kindle versus its nearest competitor, the book. Now it's time for you take sides in our latest Valleywag poll. Bonus points for anyone who composes a video response on YouTube in proper style.

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Egoblogger Robert Scoble takes the video show on the road again. Fortunately, he isn't risking other lives while driving. This time, he's merely walking around his neighborhood, showing off his new gadget — Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader — while he films and talks to himself. Why? I have no clue. Maybe Robert simply enjoys walking into things blindly. Maybe he knows his audience is most likely to view his videos if there is a chance he may walk into oncoming traffic.

Jeff Bezos, sitting in an office in Seattle, is basking in the credit for Amazon.com's new Kindle e-reader. But who really deserves credit for it? Lab126, an Amazon subsidiary in the heart of Silicon Valley — Cupertino, Calif., Apple's hometown. With former Apple and Palm employees running the quasi-startup, some have speculated that Lab126 might be coming up with an MP3 player or handheld computer. Instead? The Kindle, which many have dinged for a design that hardly matches the iPod or Treo. ("The Pontiac Aztek of e-readers," says a friend of blogger Jason Kottke.) The good news: Lab126, which now openly takes credit for the Kindle, is hiring two more designers. If you want to do something about the Kindle's design, now's your chance.