Kindle 2 one-ups Barnes & Noble Nook by embracing the blind

In the recent past Amazon has received flack for the way text-to-speech operates on the Kindle 2. It’s buried in text menus and is virtually impossible for someone who is blind or visually impaired to access. Apparently recognizing the business opportunity Amazon has chosen to expand support for the blind and visually impaired by building out new audio menus and a larger font. The Barnes & Noble Nook currently does not have any support for text-to-speech, though its users are certainly interested in it.

Luckily for Barnes & Noble text-to-speech is largely a software implementation as long as the underlying hardware is powerful enough to support it. Forums on the company’s web site are busy with discussion from potential and existing customers looking for the feature. That’s a perfect opportunity for Amazon.

The e-tailer giant isn’t missing out:

To make Kindle more useful for the blind, the Kindle team is currently working on an audible menuing system so blind and vision-impaired readers can easily navigate to books unassisted, in addition to listening to books as they can already do today with Read To Me. In addition, a new super size font will be added to Kindle . . .

Beyond the market opportunity presented by Barnes & Noble’s Nook missing text-to-speech, Amazon was also facing an uphill battle in selling the Kindle 2 to schools. Two advocacy groups: Federation of the Blind, and the American Council of the Blind planned to sue Arizona State and filed complaints against 5 other schools participating in Kindle trials. Without the right set of features Amazon could find itself blocked from a large segment of customers. College is a great place to start lifelong buying habits so the impetus to adapt is clear.

Amazon is enjoying a comfortable market leader position in the growing eBook reader market and it’s on the track to continue that lead if it adopts a policy of continuous improvement, delivering features customers are demanding.