Oprah endorsing a product is a huge deal. Oprah has a lot of money but she has a lot of power too as she has direct access to the ears of so many folks in the nation. I got to admit that when Oprah endorsed Amazon Kindle, I was a bit skeptic. I wasn’t sure if Oprah could encourage ordinary folks to pick up this revolutionary device. But according to the folks at Bloomberg, Oprah could be the reason why Kindle is and will be sold out for 3 months. That’s still no excuse for Amazon not doing a better job forecasting demand.

While it’s impressive that Amazon has sold 450-500K Kindles this year, it is still ways away to truly challenge paper-books. That will happen in the future, but no in 2009. The fact that Amazon stayed conservative with their forecasts also hurt them. Not only their loyal customers are made to wait for months to get their hands on Kindle, Amazon has left a lot of money on the table by not producing more Kindles.

Oprah or no Oprah, Amazon needs to take more risks with the Kindle project. Kindle won’t be great unless Amazon gets more aggressive. Selling 400K - 500K Kindles is impressive, but Amazon should be aiming for selling 5M in 2010.  That will all depend on how Amazon plays its cards.

Oprah endorsing Amazon Kindle was a big thing. At least that was the logical expectations when a heavyweight such as Oprah calls Kindle one the “best gadgets” she has ever had. But analysts are claiming that Oprah’s endorsement may not matter to Amazon until 2010!

Oprah’s endorsement has had some effect. And I think the effects will be more significant than some of the naysayers expect them to be. I have been a big fan of Amazon Kindle since day one, but I see two fundamental challenges for Amazon in the upcoming month:

• Economy
• Culture

The economy has hit and has hit companies hard. The tech companies are now feeling the effects (Sun Microsystems is cutting force and more companies will follow suit). Folks simply do not have money to spend on Kindle (possible solution: offering free interest financing for 12 months, lowering the price, an alternative monthly fee structure).

Many folks simply do not take Kindle seriously. We have gotten used to paper books, and sometimes it is hard to breakaway from old habits. Amazon needs to find ways to encourage folks to adopt Kindle. That could be done with major book promotions, early book releases, exclusive content, free starter content packs, and content distribution promotions.

Amazon Kindle is a wonderful device, but if people fail to justify paying $350 for it, then Amazon’s got a big problem. In these tough times, Amazon needs to bring its innovative ways to product management and content distribution. If not, even the mighty Oprah can’t turn the tide.

I got to admit. I have always doubted Oprah’s hype, and I have always been prove wrong. This lady can sell, and a lot of folks just buy things that she says you should buy. Now. I may have had some disagreements with her about some of the items that she has recommended in the past, but recommending Kindle was just right on the money.

But she did more than that. For a while, she was giving $50 off on Kindle on her site. That offer expired a few days ago, but I’d be interested to see how many folks bought the $300 Kindle. I am sure Oprah has gotten paid handsomely for her recommendation, so the sales bump better be good. She did come through for Barack. Will she for Kindle?