Amazon.com Inc. is developing a new version of its Kindle electronic-book reader featuring a larger screen, according to people who said they have seen a version of the device. . . .The move could help Amazon better compete for the business of newspaper and magazine publishers looking for new distribution platforms for digital content.

via Amazon Is Developing Bigger-Screen Kindle – WSJ.com.

There is a lot to like already about the Kindle as a platform for magazine and newspaper content, but I haven’t read much about the reason I think it works, and is worth paying for: unlike the Web sites of most newspapers, the Kindle preserves a key newspaper-reading experience: Serendipity.

People read newspapers, whether they realize it or not, as much to discover things they didn’t know they were interested in as to find out more about what they’ve already heard. It’s a pain and an annoyance to have that experience on the Web, and prepopulated searches and alerts do nothing in that regard. But flipping through a Kindle index of a newspaper’s contents gives one the ability to see everything in the paper and dig into something unexpected.

Reading today’s (print) New York Times reinforced this for me, again; a wonderful, if sad, piece about the damage that the Italy earthquake caused to centuries-old works of art was worth the price of admission. Not only was it a look at the issue from a current point of view, but it had a healthy dose of explanation of why and how cultural heritage matters to Italians. I wouldn’t have gotten up in the morning to go looking for it, but once in the paper it was about the first thing I read. (The WSJ had a similar piece that I got to later.)

Preserving these sorts of experiences, the kind that build and reinforce habits by making the reader feel good about herself/himself and about the folks who provided the information, is a key need as media businesses find their way in the digital present and future. Better Kindles and e-readers are just one small part of the solution.