It appears that the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader, is Oprah Winfrey’s favorite new gadget. She said on her site that the device changed her life. "It's absolutely my new favorite thing in the world," she said elatedly.

Why would we care, discerning readers could ask? Well, simply because every time Oprah Winfrey endorsed a product the sales for it increased exponentially. Case in point: the 1952 novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Oprah’s endorsement of it propelled it to the top of The New York Times bestseller list for about seven consecutive weeks.

Considering that Amazon.com is even offering a code for $50 off of the price of Kindle (code is OPRAHWINFREY), it can be safe to assume that her endorsement is not altogether independent. But what’s more interesting is the potential result: This move can move the Kindle device into the mainstream, despite its prohibitive price of $359, and also leave the Kindle’s main rival, the Sony Reader, eating dust.

This is especially probable considering the fact that the Sony Reader is $50 more expensive than the Kindle, and unlike the Amazon device, it does not allow for downloading books directly to the device, being dependent upon a PC connection.

The ultimate question here, though, is that of price. If e-book reader devices are going to be accepted into the mainstream, pop culture figure endorsement or not, it’s a matter if the average Joe is going to pony up $200 to $700 for the ability to read books in an electronic format, a price range that may be a bit steep in this particular day and age. Another mainstream adoption concern is the fact that a lot of folks are still uncomfortable with the idea of a digital reader, as they prefer the more traditional medium of paper books.

Nevertheless, most modern e-book devices today use the “EInk” display material, which has the advantage of only requiring an electrical charge to “turn on” the pixel being displayed. This means that unlike LCD, you only need power when the display changes, so it’s very power-efficient, also it does not require the display itself to be luminescent, which means it’s a lot easier on the eyes, and can be read even in sunlight, much like real paper.

What’s interesting is that the microcapsules which make up EInk can be printed using existing screen printing processes, and can thus be placed on any surface, like glass, plastic, fabric and even actual paper.

Tech buffs have been experimenting with the concept of Electronic Newspapers, which are printed on paper, but have dynamic content which changes as events unfold, updating information via wireless link to the Internet. The tech is still in its early stages, but it’s clear that the electronic medium is the direction in which mainstream publishing is most definitely going, regardless if Oprah Winfrey supports it or not.