Oprah thinks the Kindle is great too!

Earlier this year, I told you about one of my favorite gadgets — the Amazon Kindle e-book — as well as my brush with Amazon greatness. (Read the full story here.)

Well, yesterday, my recommendation was joined by… well, by somebody whose recommendations mean a whole bunch… none other then Oprah when she classified the Kindle as her favorite gadget in the world.

Here is how the SJMN’s Good Morning Silicon Valley blog write about it:

In the world of product endorsements, there’s not much that can match a personal and public blessing by Oprah Winfrey. From books to diets to candidates, the woman has that rare power to move markets, and as evidenced by the long list of goods that have made her annual Favorite Things list, she’s not shy about exercising it. Today it was the tech world getting a little bit of that Oprah lovin’ as she declared the Amazon Kindle as “absolutely my new favorite thing in the world.” Seems somebody gave her one of the wireless electronic readers this summer and it has been nothing short of “life-changing.” So, just in time for holiday shopping, she brought Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos onto Friday’s show to savor her testimonial. And, as if Oprah Seal of Approval weren’t enough, her loyal followers can use the code OPRAHWINFREY at the Amazon site to get $50 off the $359 selling price. That may still be a bit steep in times when a lot less income is falling into the “disposable” category, and some folks, even if tempted, may want to hold out for the release of the next version, but with a big, wet kiss like this in front of massive, mainstream audience, a sales bump is virtually assured.

All Oprah audience members got one for free and, as GMSV mentions, you can get $50 off the $359 list price by using the code OPRAHWINFREY at check-out.

I have been a fan of my Kindle — it is largely how I read most books these days.

One of the other big advantages, which Oprah did not mention, is that you can send documents that you want to read to your Kindle. So… have a bunch of work documents that you have to read and you don’t want to carry them all around? Send them to your Kindle and you’ll have them with you.

There could be advantages for agencies that have standard operating procedures or piles of instructions that they keep in notebooks. Given that the Kindle is searchable in documents, couldn’t those be replace by a Kindle? Who knows, but…

Again, as the GMSV post says — and as I mentioned earlier this year — I keep hearing there is going to be a Kindle 2.0 coming out very soon — before Christmas, I would assume. (There is a photo of the redesigned Kindle here.) I was hoping that Bezos was going to announce it with Oprah, but…

Two updates: I mentioned the Kindle 2.0. There was a lot of Twittering about this topic. BusinessWeek reported in August that Kindle 2.0 could come this year. The NYT said — also in August — that we shouldn’t hold our breath — it will be next year. More recently, Publisher’s Weekly reported on Oct. 22 that there won’t be a new Kindle this year.