Target has become good at building anticipation among its customers, then exceeding all sales expectations, as can be seen in many of its collaborations with top designers like Liberty of London and Cynthia Vincent, but they seemed to falter with a similar sales plan for Kindle by selling the old model weeks before the newer, 3G model came out. This could have been an attempt to capture the back-to-school shoppers, but they didn’t even bundles Amazon e-books with purchase of a device from Target.

Target says, “Our guest’s response to Kindle has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Mark Schindele, senior vice president, Target. “We are thrilled to bring guests nationwide this incredibly light, portable, easy-to-read product that allows them to get all the news and books they want.”

Florida school replaces textbooks with Kindles. Every student receives a Kindle and the school ends up saving money.

The Ledger has an article about how their school gave up bulky textbooks for Kindles and ebooks.

One bad reading habit – skipping over big words – can no longer be justified by excuses like, “I didn’t have a dictionary,” because the Kindle has a built-in dictionary, which displays definitions for highlighted words. “It helps with reading comprehension,” said senior Bennie Niles, 17.

Another feature he is excited about is the text-to-speech capability. Press a button, and a well-inflected computer voice says the word aloud.

And learning curve? For students who do not know a world without mobile computing, no big deal. “It’s just like texting,” said senior Gabrielle Adams, 17, about inputting notes. “And everybody knows how to text,” Niles said.

When the idea was first proffered by Principal Keith Mastorides last year, some students were skeptical it would actually happen. Voices such as these are part of the reason Mastorides said he pushed to make the project a reality – to give students a more level playing field and prepare them for a more networked world.

“He’s a man of his word,” Niles said. “Not a lot of people thought it would happen. And now here we are with the Kindles.”

The school district is also excited because there are some slight financial benefits, which adds to its viability in the classroom.