Amazon.com often gets credit for sparking consumer interest in electronic readers, but it's often overlooked that Sony had its own reading device out a year earlier. Sony ended up getting steamrolled by Amazon's marketing machine, and is now relegated to playing catch up with the Kindle. How did Sony lose the advantage? AdvertisingAge gives an interesting breakdown of the two companies' strategies, and also notes the increasingly aggressive steps that Sony is taking to claw its way back.

AdAge writes that Sony had a the first-mover status and "received better hardware reviews" than Kindle, but allowed Amazon "to grab far more mind share -- and very likely market share." By the time Sony fired up its marketing engines in October of last year, talk show host Oprah Winfrey was naming Kindle her favorite new gadget -- an endorsement that sent demand for Amazon's e-reader soaring.

More recently, Sony has been preparing an all-out assault on Kindle, boosting its list of titles by tapping into Google's massive book-scanning project; announcing a new $199 e-reader (undercutting the cheapest Kindle by $100); and embracing an open e-book standard, a move that sets it apart from Kindle's device restrictions.

AdAge says Sony is planning a big fall marketing push running through the holiday season, which will include "an aggressive retail presence, with stand-alone displays and interactive kiosks in stores from Best Buy and Borders to Walmart and Target, an in-person experience Amazon's Kindle can't reproduce."

Of course, the electronic reader is growing more crowded, with bookseller Barnes & Noble teaming with upstart Plastic Logic on a new reading device, and Apple rumored to be coming out with a tablet computer that could compete with Kindle -- which could complicate Sony's plans.

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