It was on Monday Amazon.com geared up for shipping the Kindle 2, and on Tuesday the online retailer officially started shipping its next generation electronic-book reader, which has recently become one of the most coveted electronic devices.

Actually the shipping of the Kindle 2 was triggered 2 a day earlier than scheduled. It was probably done after seeing the orders Amazon has been getting. The online retailer has been getting orders since Feb. 9, when the device was first unveiled.

In a statement, the VP of the Kindle, Ian Freed said, "The response from customers to Kindle 2 has been tremendous. In order to ensure we ship Kindle 2 by the original ship day of Feb. 24, we started shipping one day early."

Sizing a third of an inch thick and weighing about 10 ounces, the Kindle 2 is much better than its predecessor. It has better battery life, better display, and better storage capacity than the original kindle. Priced at $359, the Kindle 2 is the main competitor of the Sony Reader, which is available at $300.

Everyone knows the success story of the original Kindle, but Amazon has never announced the number of Kindles it has sold since bringing out the device in November 2007. The online retailer only said, “The Kindle represents 10% of the sales of the 230,000 books available in electronic format and in physical form”. Now, let’s “wait and watch” to see what the Kindle 2 could do for its maker.