Kindle Fire
Amazon’s Kindle Fire might finally change the whole publishing industry – irrevocable; http://eicker.at/KindleFire
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Wallet
Google launches Google Wallet on Sprint: checkout wirelessly via Citi MasterCard, Pepaid Card; http://eicker.at/GoogleWallet
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “In May we announced Google Wallet – an app that makes your phone your wallet – with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). – We’ve been testing it extensively, and today we’re releasing the first version of the app to Sprint. That means we’re beginning to roll out Google Wallet to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update – just look for the ‘Wallet’ app. … Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your existing plastic credit cards. As a thanks to early adopters, we’re adding a $10 free bonus to the Google Prepaid Card if you set it up in Google Wallet before the end of the year.”
Google: “Google Wallet is a mobile app that will make your phone your wallet. It stores virtual versions of your existing plastic cards on your phone, along with your coupons, and eventually, loyalty and gift cards. Our intention is that Google Wallet will be an open mobile wallet holding all the cards and coupons you keep in your leather wallet today. … NFC is a wireless technology that enables data transmission between two objects when they are brought within a few inches of each other. Smartphones enabled with NFC technology can exchange data with other NFC enabled devices or read information from smart tags embedded in posters, stickers, and other products. … Google Checkout is a service that enables merchants to accept and process online payments. Google Wallet, on the other hand, is a mobile app that enables users to tap and pay at physical, brick and mortar stores. … The Google Prepaid Card allows you to use Google Wallet even if you don’t have an eligible Citi MasterCard. It is a virtual card powered by MasterCard and Money Network. You can fund this prepaid card with any of your existing plastic credit cards. And since it’s purely virtual, you won’t get a physical plastic card in the mail. You can tap and pay immediately after funds are added.”
TC: “Bummed by the limited launch? Don’t be. This somewhat-cautious approach is really the only way they could do it: NFC is still a relatively new technology, with a complicated network of partners, and, most importantly, involves your money. Google is really the first company with the power to move the world towards NFC – but even for them, it’s going to be something of an uphill battle, and they’ll have to take things one small step at a time. – Fortunately, Google also just announced their next (small step) huge leap: support for Visa, Discover, and American Express cards.”
pC: “For the moment, Google Offers is only available in cities in the U.S. That means the purchase of the Daily Deal site could give Google an easy route to ramping up the service in Europe as well. … In May, when Wallet and Offers were announced by Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of commerce, she described how Wallet would be about more than just payments, and would also be used for loyalty programs, check-ins and other transactions. … Google is not the only one working in these areas: on the deals front it is already competing against dominant Groupon, big LivingSocial, and fast-rising Amazon, among many others.”
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: Sharing Privacy
Facebook follows Diaspora, Google Plus: Making it easier to share with who you want; http://eicker.at/FacebookSharingPrivacy
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: “Today we’re announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want. You have told us that ‘who can see this?’ could be clearer across Facebook, so we have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward. The main change is moving most of your controls from a settings page to being inline, right next to the posts, photos and tags they affect. Plus there are several other updates here that will make it easier to understand who can see your stuff (or your friends’) in any context. Here’s what’s coming up, organized around two areas: what shows up on your profile, and what happens when you share something new. … These changes will start to roll out in the coming days. When they reach you, you’ll see a prompt for a tour that walks you through these new features from your homepage. In the meantime, you can read more about the upcoming changes from the links throughout this post. We’ll look forward to your feedback on all of this. – Taken together, we hope these new tools make it easier to share with exactly who you want, and that the resulting experience is a lot clearer and a lot more fun.”
WSJ/ATD: “Facebook Makes Sharing More Granular (Hmm … Where Have We Heard That Pitch Before?) – Facebook isn’t borrowing the greater Google+ anatomy, like ‘Circles’ of friends and a mix of asymmetrical and mutual relationships. – Instead, Facebook is making a huge number of tweaks to its profile design, many of them aimed at addressing common user complaints. – This launch seems likely to ruffle Facebook users’ notoriously sensitive feathers given its little tweaks affect so many parts of the Facebook experience. But at least based on the press briefing, it’s not obvious that any one change will be controversial or dramatic.”
NYT: “No doubt the company also wants to diminish the possibility of legislation, investigation or litigation stemming from complicated or confusing privacy settings. And with mounting competition from other social networking sites, namely Google+, which emphasizes more compartmentalized communications to different sets of friends and acquaintances, Facebook is also keen to keep its customers’ trust. … Whether users will find the changes more inviting or simpler remains to be seen – as does whether they will opt to be more or less private. Facebook declined to share statistics on its users’ current privacy settings.”
TC: “So what changed? The obvious answer is Google+. Facebook’s response to my assertion was that Facebook wished it could have built these features in the time since Google+ launched, but that work on these changes actually began around six months ago. Which is probably half true. Facebook knew Google was going to be launching a social network that would try to underscore all of its flaws — note how many of these features are already live on Google+ — so it preemptively started working to fix the things that annoy people about Facebook. – Whatever the case, these are all good changes, and they make Facebook better.”
VB: “The features sound a lot like the features that appear in Google’s latest social network Google+. Rather than sequester the privacy settings on a separate settings page away from the actual action on the site, Facebook is moving its privacy and sharing features straight to the main page. It removes a lot of the hassle of having to jump to different pages to tweak privacy controls.”
GigaOM: “And although Facebook executives have dismissed Google+ as a non-threat, Facebook has certainly showed a renewed zest in shipping new products and features in the weeks since Google’s social network launched. As my colleague Mathew Ingram wrote recently, ‘It seems clear that the competition is keeping Facebook awake at night — which may be a good thing.‘ As Facebook and Google duke it out for consumer loyalty, they’re both bringing their best efforts to the table as quickly as possible — and the real winners will be the millions of social media users across both platforms.”
IF: “The changes may reduce the volume of content that is unwittingly overshared, and help users protect themselves from being associated with objectionable content against their will. The end result could be an increase in confidence in Facebook privacy that leads users to be comfortable sharing more, which could in turn increase engagement with the site. … Privacy has been Facebook’s biggest problem to date. A lack of confidence in the site’s privacy settings has scared away new users, frustrated existing users, and kept people from sharing more sensitive content. If Facebook can combine technological and design solutions with reassurance that users are in control of their online presence, it could leave its troubles behind and move towards making users happy rather than preventing them from getting angry.”
Gerrit Eicker
ACSI Social Media 2011
ACSI: Social media services struggle with customer satisfaction. Facebook opens door for Google Plus; http://eicker.at/ACSISocialMedia2011
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Gerrit Eicker
ACSI: “The social media market is primed for a new player that allows users to connect with friends, according to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report, produced in partnership with customer experience analytics firm ForeSee Results. Despite a small improvement this year, Facebook (+3% to 66) is the lowest-scoring site, not only in the social media category, but of all measured companies in this report. The survey was conducted last month, before the widespread introduction of Facebook’s biggest competitor, Google+, but Facebook’s low score indicates that Google+ could easily pounce and gain market share if they can provide a superior customer experience. – ‘We don’t know yet how Google+ will fare, but what we do know is that Google is one of the highest-scoring companies in the ACSI and Facebook is one of the lowest,’ said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. ‘An existing dominance of market share like Facebook has is no longer a safety net for a company that is not providing a superior customer experience.‘ – Facebook is just one story emerging from today’s report. The ACSI E-Business Report covers three categories of e-business: social media, portals and search engines, and online news. This is the twelfth annual report of its kind, allowing companies and analysts to track the performance of these organizations over time by a critical metric: customer satisfaction. – Wikipedia (+1% to 78) takes the top spot, while YouTube (+1% to 74) comes in a distant second. Myspace drops from this year’s Index because there were not enough users to create a statistically significant sample. Overall, social media is one of the lowest-scoring industries measured by the ACSI – only airlines, newspapers, and subscription television services score lower. – Google leads the search engine and portals category (up 4% to 83), but Bing follows closely, jumping an impressive 7% in one year to 82. Anything over 80 is generally considered an excellent score. Bing has grown in market share over the last year and makes up roughly 17% of the search engine market, up from 9% last year. – ‘While Google+ is the challenger to Facebook’s established dominance in the social media sphere, in the search engine wars, Google is king and Bing is hoping to be a contender,’ added Freed. ‘Last year, Google’s customer satisfaction score was three points higher than Bing’s. This year, that gap narrows to one point. Bing is showing it can challenge Google in terms of revenue, market share, and the customer experience.‘”
Gerrit Eicker
Metered Paywalls
Newspapers can tailor their pricing structure rather than use a one size fits all-approach; http://eicker.at/MeteredPaywalls
Gerrit Eicker
Humble vs. Ambitious?
Rod Humble, Linden Lab CEO, formerly EA: Ease of use and accessibility are obviously extremely important; http://eicker.at/RH
Gerrit Eicker
News Relations
Armstrong: News remains important to the consumer, but where they get it from is not; http://eicker.at/NewsRelations
Gerrit Eicker
Software Business Metrics
Mask: 5 metrics every software CEO should obsess over. CPA, NIPE, NPS, CLV, Adoption; http://eicker.at/SoftwareBusinessMetrics
Gerrit Eicker 08:19 on 28. September 2011 Permalink |
TC: “On Wednesday morning in New York City, Amazon will unveil the Kindle Fire. Yes, this is the name Amazon has settled on, to help differentiate the product from the e-ink Kindles… It will be a 7-inch backlit display tablet that looks similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook. … [H]aving played with a DVT model myself, I can assure you that it’s better than the PlayBook because the software is better and, more importantly, the content available is much better. … We also originally heard that Amazon Prime would be included, as a big enticement for would-be buyers. That may be off the table for now as well – but it’s not yet clear. It’s possible Amazon will release one version with Prime included for $300 and a version without it for $250. Getting Amazon Prime for $50 would still be a deal, since it’s normally $79 for the year.”
pC: “The success of the Kindle shows Amazon is prepared to think differently from others and to disrupt its own products – in the Kindle’s case to disrupt the cash cow of print book sales – in order to be innovative and seize early advantage in digital markets. If Amazon’s hardware is undifferentiated and virtually the same as RIM’s PlayBook then Amazon has to differentiate elsewhere with content, experience and business models. Otherwise it will suffer the same fate as RIM’s PlayBook. … Amazon will build a true media tablet. The first true media tablet. The Kindle tablet will focus on the future of all media – TV, movies, music, books, magazines – to enable Amazon to become the dominant digital media retailer. That is Amazon’s ambition.”
Guardian: “Amazon hopes its brand recognition and loyal book-buying customer base will enable it to do battle with Apple, which produced 75% of the tablets sold this year. – Research firm Forrester reckons the Kindle tablet could sell between 3m and 5m units in its first year.”
VB: “The timing of Amazon’s announcement might have something to do with competition from Barnes and Nobel, which is also allegedly scheduled to announce a new Nook Color tablet that will also retail for $250.”
ATD: “In 2010, magazine publishers got giddy about the prospects of selling their stuff on the iPad. This year’s version of the story: Lots of enthusiasm, tempered with a little bit of skepticism, over Amazon’s new tablet. … Publishers will keep around 70 percent of all Amazon sales, and the retailer will share some customer data with the publishers. … The publishers who are on board with Amazon view their decision to link up as a no-brainer: They want more distribution channels for their stuff, not fewer. And they’ve been begging, unsuccessfully, for a credible competitor to the iPad since April 2010.”
TC: “With the launch of the Kindle Fire tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to write a little bit sci-fi and imagine what the publishing market will look like in the next ten or so years. I’m a strong proponent of the ebook and, as I’ve said again and again, I love books but they’re not going to make it past this decade, at least in most of the developed world. … 2025 – The transition is complete even in most of the developing world. The book is, at best, an artifact and at worst a nuisance. Book collections won’t disappear – hold-outs will exist and a subset of readers will still print books – but generally all publishing will exist digitally.”
Gerrit Eicker 17:33 on 28. September 2011 Permalink |
TC: “Amazon Fires $199, 7-Inch Tablet At Apple – The Fire itself is rather characterless and dull. It looks a lot like the 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook (probably for good reason) and features just enough tech to pass as acceptable. There’s a two-point multitouch screen (the iPad has a 10-point screen), and an unspecified CPU… The most notable change is obviously the multitouch 7-inch LCD rather than an e-ink display, but moreover, the Kindle Fire is a complete storefront for the retailer rather than just an ereader. The tablet features apps for Amazon’s Android Appstore, Kindle store, Amazon MP3, and Prime Instant Video. … Amazon is pricing this model aggressively. Bloomberg is reporting prior to Amazon’s official event that the Kindle Fire hits at just $199 and comes with 30-days of Amazon Prime.”
TC: “Amazon has revealed a new line of E-Ink Kindles that looks to bolster their ‘traditional’ eReader lineup. The three new models have taken the stage: the $79 Kindle, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $149 Kindle Touch 3G. – The new super small, non-touch Kindle was announced to appeal to Amazon’s legion of eReading purists. It’s small enough to fit in a pack pocket, and will cost users a scant $79 – customers can order today, and Amazon says it will ship today too.”
Gerrit Eicker 11:57 on 29. September 2011 Permalink |
GigaOM: “They say Apple has met its first real tablet competitor. And no, it is not Samsung or Motorola. Instead it is from a company that started out selling books on the Internet: Amazon. And while there is some truth to that assertion, I wouldn’t put a lot of weight in the argument. … With the new Kindles, Amazon has been able to define the hybrid retail environment. … Given that we are increasingly shifting away from buying physical media and are instead opting for digital goods, Amazon is smart in its introducing the new Kindle tablet. … Amazon’s primary business is selling us things – lots of them – and getting them to us as cheaply as possible. And that includes physical and digital goods and services. That is its corporate DNA, and that DNA is going to influence all of its decisions – whether it is redesigning its website or defining new tablets. … The bottom line is that Amazon will be successful – at least more successful than Motorola or HTC – but it won’t come at the expense of Apple’s iPad or Samsung’s Android-based tablets.“