By NYU Staff

Anyone who follows the e-reader market knows Amazon’s Kindle is still milking its first mover advantage, but the 69% spike in revenues in Amazon’s third quarter was hard to predict. It beat Street expectations, and helped move the stock up 25% to $117. CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t give exact numbers, but said the Kindle was the company’s number one “bestselling item by both unit sales and dollars,” in a press release. So much for the cynics who thought the Kindle couldn’t make money. Still, the competition is chomping at the bit and some are more vocal than others when it comes to criticism of Bezo’s black-and-white e-reader.

“The Kindle is a fantastic invention for books, but it’s not much of an experience for newspapers,” said News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch in a press call on November 4.

It’s no secret that News Corp. and Hearst are both trying to come up with something to compete with Amazon’s Kindle. In fact, Murdoch said he’s investing ”in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there,” at The Cable Show in April.

For now, though, the Kindle has first-mover advantage and is hanging on for dear life. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney predicts that   Amazon will generate between $400 million and $750 million in Kindle revenue by 2010 based on a ball-park Kindle sales estimate of between 10,000 and 30,000 units.

Some of the Kindle’s other competitors include The Nook by Barnes & Noble and Apple’s Tablet, as well as Silicon Valley start-up Plastic Logic and European company iRex. This is just the beginning of the battle for e-reader market share.