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"If you're not already familiar with Peek, it's a company making phone-factor handhelds that aren't actually phones: for about $15 a month they'll get you a device with a QWERTY keyboard for checking email and/or sending SMS.\nNow apparently they have made and plan to market a Peek device that does one thing and one thing only: Twitter. There's already an Amazon page for the TwitterPeek device, and a photo of the packaging has appeared courtesy of Peter Ha (pictured below).\n\n\n\nThe kicker? Assuming the Amazon page is correct, Peek is asking $199 up front for the device (which is not yet released but is up for pre-order). Although it gets you a lifetime of Twitter service on the device with no contract or monthly fees, that's still a lot to ask for up front for a device that only does one thing.\nThe TwitterPeek draws an obvious comparison to something like the WikiReader we covered earlier this month. It's a $99 appliance that does one thing: allows you to browse Wikipedia. In both cases, there's probably a market for the device \u2014 but it's bound to be very small. Perhaps too small to overcome the cost of producing and marketing the product.\nThe burgeoning eReader market kicked off by the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle and about to be flooded with the Barnes &amp; Noble Nook, Plastic Logic Que, Spring Design Alex and LG's solar eReader essentially faces the same problem. Are there enough advantages (low cost, simplicity, specificity) in a single-function device to justify a sustainable market share, or will all-in-one devices like an Apple Tablet or Microsoft Courier end up eating their lunch thanks to more utility for reasonable cost?\nUnfortunately for a device like the TwitterPeek, the answer is probably \"no.\" They might have more success with a super-cheap monthly plan instead of $200 up front \u2014 $5 a month mobile Twitter access for example might appeal to a sliver of users not interested in shelling out for a smartphone and power users who are interested in redundancy.\nWhat do you think of the TwitterPeek: hanging in the hollowed halls of Bad Gadget Ideas? Possibly useful but too expensive? Who would want this device?\n[via Engadget]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2009/10/28/twitterpeek/>