With the announcement last week of the Kindle Fire, its color e-reader based on the Android platform, Amazon has validated our prediction that an important trend/story this year would be the battle between the iPad and the iPad Killers. (Check out: Birnbach Communications’ Top Predictions for 2011, Part I.)

In the wake of perceived and actual failures like RIM’s PlayBook and H-P’s TouchPad, the iPad competitors have not lived up to the “killer” designation. Which explains some of the interest in the Kindle Fire as perhaps being a good challenger to the iPad.

Is the Kindle Fire an iPad killer? Probably not in version 1.0, but it almost doesn’t matter. From a media perspective, the Kindle Fire breathes new life into the iPad vs. competition story.