The NYTimes is Live Blogging Amazon’s Kindle 2.0 Launch from the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. Jeff Bezos is there and right now Stephen King is onstage “reading a section of his short story, which is about the Kindle, and for the Kindle, from his free Kindle.”

In late 2001, as the global economy reeled from the double whammy of the dot.com collapse and the 9/11 attacks, Apple introduced the iPod—a work of soaring innovation that revitalized the company and quickly became the standard portable device for the music industry.

Comparisons to that seminal moment in technology history are sure to be made today. With the world economy gripped in another, much deeper recession, Amazon, the e-commerce giant, will attempt to capture the same magic by introducing a new version of the Kindle, its heralded electronic book reader.

Endgadget, CNet and TechCrunch are live blogging it, too. The Wall Street Journal knew about King this morning:

Amazon.com Inc. is announcing a new version of its Kindle e-book reader on Monday. And, in a sign that the electronic book is gaining clout in the publishing world, Amazon is also expected to say it has acquired a new work by best-selling novelist Stephen King that will be available exclusively, at least for a time, on Kindle.

Many publishers have long feared that Amazon would persuade a major author to write for its Kindle on an exclusive basis. Although retailers such as Barnes & Noble Inc. have long published their own books, they have struggled to find distribution outside their own stores. But Amazon has already proven that it can sell as many Kindles as it can manufacture. Indeed, Amazon is working to overcome the supply problems that have plagued the device. […]

How well Amazon can supply the Kindle — its first foray into the consumer-electronics industry — is important because the device is expected to be a growth business for the company’s drive into digital sales. Citigroup Inc. analyst Mark Mahaney estimates 500,000 of the devices have sold to date, based on data reported by Sprint Nextel Corp., the carrier used by Kindle users to download new books. He forecasts the product will bring Amazon $1.2 billion in sales by 2010.

Amazon is commenting on what caused the Kindle delays. Specualtion is that the Oprah endorsement had something to do with it.

Meanwhile, Dana Blankenhorn says it’s time for the Kindle to go open source:

While Apple made a ton of money selling iPods, the big bucks here are in the blades, not the razors. They’re in the books, not the players.

The only way this works is if the technology becomes as ubiquitous as, well, books. It should work inside any device you have, any device you want, any device you can imagine, or what anyone else can imagine. If it’s stuck in this squarish, plainish, plastic case it’s not going to fulfill its potential.

Kindle 1 owners, if they order before midnight tomorrow night, will be prioritized to receive the new Kindle.