Kindle to replace highlighters and post-its?
In November 2007, Amazon.com introduced an e-reader to allow easy access to a vast library of electronic books to be downloaded and read on the device – the Kindle, an iPod equivalent to books. According to Crunchgear, Amazon.com is planning to release two new Kindle models: a smaller form factor Kindle that will be available in different colors (very apple!) to be released just in time for the holidays this year, and a large screen version to be released sometime next year. TechCrunch assumes that the large screen Kindle is perfect to target the college/university textbook market, a $5.5 billion market annually in the U.S. alone. The battery life is much longer than most electronic devices, and carrying a large Kindle is still a lot better than carrying ten heavy textbooks.
At first glance the Kindle seems to be predestined to substitute textbooks. Not only because they are heavy and bulky but especially because they generally are extremely high priced. Moreover, there are new editions almost every semester that students are obliged to buy even if the ‘older’ one they already have is almost identical. Therefore, the Kindle could clearly simplify matters. Ebooks are cheaper (bestsellers definitely are) than their paper counterparts and available 24/7 – any time and any place. And with the implemented highlighting and note-taking features as well as an integrated ‘find’ function that enables the reader to search for specific words within a book, the Kindle appears to be perfect for students. However, colored diagrams, graphs, pictures and the like cannot be displayed by the Kindle and so far I have not found out how or whether it is possible to back up your work.
Furthermore, publishers are not likely to embrace the ‘Kindle’ idea, since Amazon.com might own the market. Also, it remains to be seen whether textbooks in their electronic form will be offered at lower prices, because shipping costs etc. are no longer necessary so the publishers or distributors (in this case Amazon.com) have to ‘collect’ that ‘lost’ money elsewhere. And if there is no difference in price it just would not pay to kindle.
In the end, the ‘old-fashioned’ book might turn out to be more useful: Books are sold while ebooks are licensed; old or used books can be resold whereas ebooks that are no longer needed can be regarded as electronic waste. That is because the license cannot be resold. It is possible to argue, of course, that an option to resell ebooks could be made available. That, however, is simply unnecessary. Who would buy a ‘used’ ebook? It would have to be sold at a lower price than a ‘new’ one, which, obviously, would be complete nonsense to do, because the ebook would still be new after one person has kindled it. Therefore, there is no reason to sell it any cheaper.
Nevertheless, it is a great idea that was predictable and fits today’s lifestyle. And despite all of the issues discussed above, I believe that the Kindle will be a success – it actually is already. Whether it will be a success with textbooks remains to be seen.
As for myself, I can imagine receiving my daily paper on a Kindle. I am not sure though, whether I would want to read my favorite novel on a screen. Let’s find out.
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Study: Online Marketing Gains Ground
The innovative means of online marketing are the future. Thus, the results of a study conducted by Harris Interactive can be summarized. On behalf of the PR agency Fleishman & Hillard, 5000 European consumers were questioned about any influence the internet has on their purchase decisions. The results were classified by the CEO of Fleishman & Hillard towards the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) as follows:
“The influence of the internet is much stronger than expected – and much bigger than the marketing budgets which are fed into the net. I expect that the budgets will soon be rearranged towards the internet.”
The future for online marketing in the collaborative media seems to look very promising. According to the results of Harris, however, the traditional forms of online marketing virtually have no influence on the individual consumer’s purchase decisions. On the other hand, market researchers were able to observe the fact that the more complex a product is, the higher will the influence of user opinions on an individual consumer’s purchase decisions be. If the data is to believed, the internet will become the major field for marketers in future. The change of media use in favour of the internet alone already illustrates this consequential development. However, in the field of e-business, it is not at all sufficient to rely on the traditional elements of online marketing. In fact, it is of greater importance to utilize the communicative character of collaborative media for a successful marketing. But how could such marketing tools look like? How much effort will it take and which range can be covered? Maybe the illustration below can provide answers to these questions:
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Michael Arrington Interview
In the course of an ABC interview, Michael Arrington provided some interesting insights into his thoughts and estimations around the Yahoo/Google deal. Here, his estimations concerning the collaboration of the two internet giants in the future are truly interesting. In the opinion of the Techcrunch chief blogger, the deal between the two companies will fail due to the United States antitrust law. This failure would result in the Yahoo share price still going further down the drain. The rather low rate of Yahoo shares will eventually prompt Microsoft to act in order to incorporate Yahoo as a bargain. It should be quite interesting to see whether Michael Arrington will be right after all.
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Google shall NOT be googlable!
After reading an interesting blog on valleywag.com, I started thinking about, how Google manages to offer such a great amount of information about almost anything, with just one click. Obviously, the company has to have ways to somehow work itself around privacy privileges, confidentiality agreements and the like. Google’s lawyers usually busy themselves trying to defend their right to keep content online — so Google’s search engine can index it, of course. Currently, however, it seems they are busy trying to get – and preferably keep – their own name out of the ‘search results’ when it comes to the YouTube revenue-sharing program – the video site’s new program for ads sold by video creators.
Stacey Wexler, litigation counsel for Google, instantly reacted to a blog on Silicon Alley Insider that posted the entire advertising contract. Via email, she asked Silicon Alley Insider to take down the references to this particular contract. Wexler claims the contract is confidential. First, the email was posted to its site, but now displays an error where Wexler’s email once appeared. The original post about YouTube, however, remains online, and a reader has even reposted Wexler’s email in a comment. This comment has recently been deleted from the site. Fortunately, valleywag.com has posted the email and the contract on its site. As a result, a discussion about why Google’s made such a big fuss, legal matters and an ‘evil rank’ has started:
A contract cannot be considered binding on people who didn’t sign it in the first place, so the actual CONTENTS of the contract are irrelevant.
How apt coming from a company that espouses to organize and spread “information”. Google made such a big fuss that they be free to flout copyright laws and be able to scan and publish electronic copies of all the books in the world. And then here they are, whining when one contract gets published on the net. Its not surprising though - this has always been Google’s modus operandi. It’s only evil when someone else does it.
On this note: Google might be the world’s biggest and most used search engine, but this rather embarrassing incident clearly shows that there is still a lot to learn.
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Microsoft’s CEO Ballmer “LOST” on the Internet?
The whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down, said Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer in an interview with The Washington Post on how he expects the media to change in the next 10 years. In this respect, he addresses interesting ideas and problems everyone might have already thought about themselves.
Ballmer starts off stating, that at some point in the future, there will be no media consumption that is not delivered over an IP network. Interestingly enough, he even expects magazines and newspapers to be only available in electronic form leaving their original paper form behind. A change that sounds quite sci-fi - at least to me – and is hardly going to happen in the near future, but rather in the next 20 years or so.
Another very important aspect Ballmer addresses is the one of ‘Social Interaction.’ He argues that, in order to make TV more interactive, it would have to be delivered over an IP network:
I mean, it’s sort of funny today. My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can’t sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match. It’s just because one of these things is delivered over an IP network and the other is not. . . .
Furthermore, Ballmer predicts the existence of far more producers of content than there are today – a phenomenon that can already be observed in the online world. He underlines this thought by bringing up his favorite case: Why can’t I sit in front of my television and watch the Country Day [his old High School] basketball game when I know darn well it’s being video-recorded at all times?
To the question whether internet content will be available for free, with ad support, in contrast to fees and subscriptions, Ballmer reveals that he already watches his favorite TV program “LOST” on the internet instead of buying it on iTunes even though he has to put up ads. He therefore thinks that subscriptions will be the exception in the future.
Why? Because it’s free. . . . I have to admit that I’m annoyed by the four 20 seconds [of ads], but not annoyed enough to pay a buck . . . I think at the end of the day most people say, “Heck, if I can get something that’s pretty good that’s ad-funded and the ads don’t kill me, I’ll take that over the thing I gotta pay for.”
True, isn’t?!
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Custom made travel guide
This weekend I read on techcrunch a nice article about Dave Sifry who started a new company called Offbeat Guides which produces custom made travel guides. The pdf Version you can receive within minutes and the print version within 4 working days.
Check out the article on techcrunch
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The Purchasing Continues - Condé Nast buys Ars Technica
After Plaxo and CNet have already passed over the American tech sales counter last week, the extremely popular techblog Ars Technica also changed hands. The techblog from Massachusetts was sold to the publishing house Condé Nast for approx. 25 Million Dollars. The publisher from New York is no blank page in the field of digital media, as they bought wired.com and reddit in 2006. The user rate of Ars Technica should make the German blogger heart beat faster. As estimated by Techcrunch, the blog which now belongs to Condé Nast claims about 4.500.000 Million Unique Visitors per month. Here, in order to enable a better estimation of the dimension of user rates, a comparison with Germany’s most popular weblog is advisable. For instance, Robert Basic registered, by his own account, 212.524 Unique Visitors in January 2008. These numbers clearly illustrate the further developmental potential of the medium weblog in Germany.
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Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and Xing are the major topics within the world wide web - The International Social Network Study by ethority
Social networks enjoy increasing popularity with internet users. There is hardly a better way to take care of one’s personal circle of friends or business network. But which communities enjoy a good reputation with their German and English users and which do not? Which networks within the eight surveyed linguistic areas is talked about most frequently on the web? Which opportunities do network operators provide for marketers to use these platforms for advertising purposes?
The international social network study illustrates: within the channels of communication in German user generated media, SchülerVZ receives the worst image values according to the evaluations. In English-speaking areas, xanga.com achieves only bad image values whereas the international buzz is focussed on Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn. In German-speaking areas, StudiVZ achieves the first place in the buzz index ranking. Concerning marketing strategies, traditional banners are still the prevailing choice for marketing within the social networks. Widgets are up and coming. The appeal of these small web applications lies in their immensely far range of coverage and they are increasingly provided by networks.
„The results of this study illustrate the prominent role of social networks within the environment of user generated media. No matter if within the EU, North or South America – In the future, social networking will more and more become one of the established social channels of communication. This is the specific reason why the appeal of networks will become particularly stronger for marketing departments. Although the first large-scale behaviour-targeting attempts of various network operators had to be classified as failures, the general marketing qualification of social networks should not be questioned. Take widgets, for example. These small programs are just one of the possible methods which lead to successful marketing.
But although they have many tempting possibilities in social networks, advertisers should not lose contact with the users. The key for successful marketing of social media offers lies in the direct and outspoken communication with the users…” says David Nelles, Company Spokesman of ethority GmbH & Co. KG.
For more than 10 years, ethority GmbH & Co. KG is successful at the market being experts in semantic web analyses and online marketing. ethority’s expertise includes market research and online marketing as well as the analysis, initiation and realisation of word of mouth campaigns in Germany. Here, ethority is not confined to the German-speaking market but is able to serve all international markets by means of their multi-lingual approach.
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ethority provides forthwith Twitter and Network Monitoring
With immediate effect, the ethority GmbH & Co. KG includes the web service Twitter und large networks such as Xing in their monitoring and advisory portfolio. According to NZZ (Neue Züricher Zeitung), the number of twitter users has doubled within the past six months. But also the many-to-many communication within the online communities of major networks becomes increasingly important for the social media analysis.
With this extension, ethority is the state-of-the-art provider in the field of social media analysis. Micro-blogging and communication in online communities within the major networks produce a flow of information which should not be underestimated and which has to be evaluated accordingly.
Nils Maier, Director Business Development and Operations at ethority, states: “Monitoring the micro-blogging service Twitter enables us to be directly located at the pulse of sentiments and opinions of the consumer generated media. Not only the ordinary internet user has discovered Twitter but also journalists and news agencies increasingly use this service in order to spread information within the web. This development indicates that ‘twittering’, as a type of communication channel, will establish itself more and more and, thus, becomes highly interesting from the perspective of social media analysis. A specific field of application for the twitter survey is the utilisation of received information as a leading indicator for the issue management. In the United States, it is customary that companies keep an eye on twitter. On this point, see also Michael Arringtons experiences with Comcast. We have modified ethority’s range of services in order to provide our clients with an overall insight into web 2.0 communication. Hereby, overall means not only the conventional websites, weblogs and online communities but also network communities and twitter streams. “
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ethority Study - Travel Trends 2008 Part 3
Within the channels of user generated media, family holidays are the most frequently mentioned issue. Users in weblogs like to discuss the topic of winter holidays, whereas a vacation in the snow does not enjoy great popularity in online communities. Here, users prefer to talk about cruises, while this topic cannot be found under the bloggers’ top 5 ways of travelling. Moreover, and in contrast to active online community members, bloggers rather choose to have conversations about package tours. Concerning the ways to travel, bloggers and online community members seem to agree on adventure and city travels. In both channels of communication, they are the most frequently discussed.
Top Ways to Travel - Online Communities:
Cruises
Last Minute
Adventure Vacations
City Trips
Family Holidays
Top Ways to Travel - Weblogs:
Package Tours
Adventure Vacations
City Trips
Winter Holidays
Family Holidays
Users in weblogs and online communities also agree on the way of booking travels. At this, statements for booking offline have the lion’s share of the topics. About 2/3 of the statements on both channels are allotted to the traditional booking method. This confirms the results of the recent AGOF study. Consumers like to obtain detailed advice in the user generated channels but prefer to book offline in a travel agency.
Booking Methods – Online Communities:
Internet
Travel Agency
Booking Methods - Weblogs:
Internet
Travel Agency
The here described booking behaviour indicates the path that marketers have to take in the future. The increasing consumer focus on information concerning products or travels in online domains sets new benchmarks for a successful marketing mix. No matter if it is a large-scale print campaign or an elaborate TV spot – traditional forms of advertisement impress consumers to a lesser and lesser extend. Therefore, it is essential to meet the consumer where he increasingly searches for information. More and more often, customers use portals such as Holidaycheck, TripAdvisor or Opodien in order to obtain information about their potential travel destinations and holiday accommodations before booking. In any case, marketers of the tourism industry should be prepared for this tendency, especially in consideration of the current number of internet users. By now, according to the latest survey of Bitkom, already 63% of the Germans roam the internet.
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