Kindle Lending Club: The library of the future?

The Amazon Kindle is currently the most popular e-reader on the market, and became the best-selling Amazon product in history during 2010 with over 5 million units sold. Until now, Kindle buyers have had few options for obtaining new material for the device outside of purchasing e-books and other content directly from the Kindle store. However, Amazon recently gave Kindle owners the ability to lend books to other Kindle users for a one-time, 14-day window, and a new startup company is hoping to capitalize on that feature by connecting users for the purpose of lending to and borrowing from one another.

Catherine MacDonald, a 40-year-old mother of three, had the idea for Kindle Lending Club after hearing about the Kindle’s new lending feature, and quickly started a Facebook page to facilitate the lending and borrowing process. In doing that, she has created something akin to a modern-day electronic library service.

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"Last Thursday, December 30, I heard about the introduction of lending (I missed the October announcement) and I was thrilled," MacDonald told CNET this week. "While my husband and I were going to sleep that night, an idea suddenly occurred to me, and I told him, 'Martin, you have to remind me to start a Facebook page in the morning to get people together to lend each other books!' So, that's what I did, and it just took on a life of its own."

The Facebook page quickly became popular with Kindle owners and has already facilitated over 1000 loans according to MacDonald’s estimates. In fact, business has grown so quickly that MacDonald has already recruited 4 others to help her run it, and is launching a beta website this week.

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Much of the popularity of Kindle Lending Club is likely due to the fact that MacDonald does not charge lenders or borrowers for the service.

"I do not want to associate money or even credits with book lending on our platform," she said. "I like the idea that someone who does not have access to a credit card, for whatever reason, can still borrow a book from someone--I could imagine someone in a developing country borrowing a book on business start-ups from someone in America. We enable people to do something simple: just lending a book like we've all been doing for years; but the scale and reach now makes this action potentially transformational on a global level. “

MacDonald’s company has raised an investment commitment of $12,500 so far, and plans to make money from Amazon’s affiliate program by offering customer’s links to purchase borrowed books that they haven’t finished within the 14-day lending window. She will also likely generate revenue by offering advertising on the company’s new website.

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Unfortunately, Amazon did not respond to CNET’s request for comment.

It doesn’t appear that MacDonald or her customers are breaking any of Amazon’s terms of service by running and participating in the Kindle Lending Club, so let’s hope that this type of business model has staying-power for the e-book reader community.

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