It’s been announced that Amazon is to add to its Kindle ebook reader a Facebook feature, which will give users the ability to maintain a connection to social networks via the device’s wireless.

Interesting to see how the E Ink display handles Facebook...

Indeed, this latest update to Amazon’s Kindle makes use of the one big feature of the Kindle that few, if any, other ebook readers boast, the persistent 3G connection. Indeed, it’s one of the features that’s made the Kindle so very attractive, offering instant access to Amazon’s Kindle Store on the go, and now the same service will be used to offer Kindle owners the ability to check their Facebook profiles for updates.

Of course, there whole move raises an awful lot of questions about the direction in which the Kindle is moving. Indeed, it’s been said before, largely of devices like Apple’s iPad ad HP’s upcoming Slate tablet device, that as soon as you begin to add the ability to check persistently updated content to an ebook reader, you begin to erode the ability to read books on the device, as the distraction factor quickly spirals.

Things only get stranger though, with word coming from Gizmodo that Kindle users will be able to share passages from books they’re reading through Facebook, which Gizmodo’s Brian Barrett intones is, “Something us friends of Kindle owners are surely looking forward to with baited breath.”

The big question for many will be whether or not the Kindle incarnation of Facebook is suitably well implemented to lure readers away from their books. Given the fact that the Kindle boasts an E-Ink display rather than an LCD capable of quicker refreshes or even something capable of displaying in colour, Facebook could be something of a hard sell.

Certainly Facebook staking will be a lot less fun with a slow refresh rate and no colour…