eBooks Pricing
pC: Who should control the pricing of eBooks? Publishers or Amazon? http://j.mp/zFvCmg #eBooks http://eicker.at/eBooks
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Kindle vs. iPad
Amazon will offer a Kindle Tablet on Android: at $250 it might become a challenge for the iPad; http://eicker.at/KindleVSiPad
Gerrit Eicker
MagAppZine
Digital publishing with MagAppZine: Give us 15 minutes [and a PDF]. We’ll give you an [iPad] app; http://eicker.at/MagAppZine
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Gerrit Eicker
MagAppZine: “…is a New York, NY based company founded in 2010 by former Apple employees who teamed up with an Adobe engineer to create the ultimate digital publishing tool. – MagAppZine allows publishers to create branded apps for their publications and distribute them to the world via mobile devices like the iPad, opening up their business to a whole new audience while maintaining a lower overhead. – The company’s slogan, Publishing Gone Digital, reflects MagAppZine’s mission: to give all publications the opportunity to distribute their content in the most modern way without spending an exorbitant amount of time and money.”
MagAppZine: “The creation of your branded MagApp and deployment onto the Apple App Store [starts at $2,994].”
O’Reilly: “Is the platform targeted toward a specific kind of publisher? Paul Canetti [founder]: ‘Clearly the name brings in magazines first and foremost, but the tool itself is really applicable to all sorts of publications. Anything that can be a PDF is fair game. I have a lot of conversations with small book publishers looking to create a bookstore app on a particular topic or as a branding tool for the publisher or a specific author. It is my philosophy that you should be everywhere your readers potentially are, so when someone searches for you on the App Store, it’s you that they find.’ – How can book publishers use the platform? Canetti: ‘The bookstore app is really cool, and chunking up books into collections fits nicely under the umbrella of the app. I’m also excited to start seeing sub-divisions of books – selling chapter by chapter – or using the subscription functionality to have a sort of book club app or a series where new content is being released regularly. … We’re also rolling out a new tiered monthly pricing structure that has plans starting at $99 a month.‘”
RWW: “It’s a white label, DIY app-publishing platform that is limited to PDF uploads, website viewing in an in-app browser and in-app sales of multiple issues of any publication. It looks really well thought out, simple and accessible. The price is about to drop substantially, too with the Fall release of the 2.0 version of the service. … Can PDF-type content do well in an app store context? I’m not sure, but if I had print-style content to distribute I think I would give this service a shot. It looks much nicer, frankly, than magazine reading app platforms like Zinio or HP’s Magcloud (which I love in theory but never use in practice). I want to go directly to the magazines I want to read, not wander around some app store from the app store that’s 75% filled with magazines of questionable quality.”
Gerrit Eicker
iCloud: iWork, Web Apps, Pricing
Apple‘s iCloud (beta) goes online: iWork gets web apps, pricing from free (5GB) to $100 (50GB); http://eicker.at/iCloud
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Gerrit Eicker
Apple: “iCloud stores your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, and more. And wirelessly pushes them to all your devices – automatically. It’s the easiest way to manage your content. Because now you don’t have to. … iCloud is so much more than a hard drive in the sky. It’s the effortless way to access just about everything on all your devices. iCloud stores your content so it’s always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. … When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage.”
9to5Mac: “Apple has just opened up the iCloud.com web interface for developers. The website is in beta and features all new web apps for Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and more. In addition, it appears that iCloud.com will offer a portal for users to view their iWork documents that are stored in the cloud via iCloud. On top of all of this Find my iPhone is an integrated web application. As you will see, the interface for the website is very iPad and iOS-like. We also have a video walkthrough after the break.”
MR: “iCloud is Apple’s upcoming syncing and storage service for both iOS 5 and OS X Lion. iCloud (the service) stores your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents and keeps it in sync across multiple devices. iCloud.com (the website) represents Apple’s MobileMe website replacement that gives users online access to their Calendar, Email, Address Book, Find My Phone and iWork data. The entire interface borrows heavily from iOS and Lion and incorporates many nice graphical flourishes and animations.”
TC: “Not that this should be surprising. One of Apple’s strengths has always been aesthetics. But what’s equally nice is just how slick the apps function. Both in Safari and Chrome, all the apps feel responsive and feature many subtle transitional touches presumably using HTML5. – In addition to iCloud.com going live, Apple has also posted more information about iCloud pricing. ‘5GB of free storage is plenty for most people. But if you need extra space, you can always buy additional storage,’ Apple notes on the site. Those prices are: 10 additional GB for $20 a year, 20 additional GB for $40 a year, 50 additional GB for $100 a year – Of note, your iCloud Photo Stream, iOS apps, music, and TV shows you buy from iTunes/the App Store do not count against your 5GB of free storage.“
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
TwentyFeet Stays Free
TwentyFeet, the egotracker for social media, keeps 2 services free, starts freemium model; http://eicker.at/TwentyFeet
Gerrit Eicker
Magazines and the iPad
Mainstream magazine publishers have a short window before independent publishers crash the iPad; http://eicker.at/s
Gerrit Eicker
Second Life: Educational Exodus?
Linden Lab cancels educational rebates for SL; http://j.mp/cgiFFv @Fleep: Are you trying to hasten the exodus to OpenSim?
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Gerrit Eicker
LL: “We will adjust how education and non-profit advantages are provided, effective Jan. 1, 2011. All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing. All currently discounted renewals which occur after Dec. 31, 2010, will be adjusted to the new price at that time. To continue to provide entry-level, private spaces to educators just launching their programs, we will be providing Homestead and Open Space regions to qualifying organizations without their meeting the retail full-region criterion. Customer Support will be available to answer any questions that you may have about these changes.”
DW: “Yesterday’s announcement that the Lab was raising prices on education and non-profits has kicked in a sort of reflex instinct: maybe there is a strategy, and I’m simply too mortal to get it. – I have no idea why I’m doing this to myself again. I went through this for, hmmm, a few years I guess and it turned out that there wasn’t any sort of secret answer, there wasn’t much more than the Love Machine, and Mark Kingdon was brought in to answer the same question I had pounded my own head over: where are you trying to go, and how are you going to get there?”
MJ: “And rightly so, given the critical mass of educators that have generated significant outcomes for Second Life. In fact, it could be argued that it’s only the good news stories generated by the non-profits that have helped offset some of the negative aspects inflated by parts of the mainstream media and others. The comments section below the announcement is well worth a read: even taking out the initial emotion, the overwhelming attitude is that it’s time to downsize or move on. Of course, the migration to OpenSim grids is already well underway, for a range of reasons.”
AH: “Discounted Second Life virtual land will be phased out for non-profit organizations and the education sector as of January 1, 2011 according to this announcement by Nelson Linden. Reaction was predictably negative from those whose budget cycles do easily accommodate costs doubling with three months notice – in other words, essentially all non-profits and education. … Apparently Linden lab has written off the non-profit sector to concentrate on entertainment in Philip Linden’s walled garden of cyber delights.“
Gerrit Eicker
Bitly.Pro Enterprise
Bit.ly has announced some user interface changes and a whole series of new features for paid users; http://j.mp/aVLPAQ
Gerrit Eicker
Business Buyers: Business Searchers
Business buyers use search engines throughout the entire research: pricing, products, reviews; http://j.mp/9H20AG
TC, Siegler: “Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It. … It’s called simply the ‘Amazon Kindle’. But it’s not like any Kindle you’ve seen before. It displays content in full color. It has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen. And it runs Android. … Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, I believe the reports that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like the iPad uses) are accurate. This will be the first Kindle with a full-color screen. And yes, it is back-lit. There is no e-ink to be found anywhere on this device. … So how much will the 7-inch Kindle cost? $250. – Yes, Amazon has been able to trim the cost of the device to half of the entry-level iPad. And it will be the same price as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color, which this will very obviously compete with directly. Both have 7-inch color touch screens. Both run Android. … The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. … But the key for Amazon is just how deeply integrated all of their services are. Amazon’s content store is always just one click away. The book reader is a Kindle app (which looks similar to how it does on Android and iOS now). … Oh and one more thing: Amazon has been working on a multi-touch screen/e-ink hybrid tablet device. But that’s nowhere near completion, I’m told. So for now, this new Kindle will have to do.”
TC: “I threw together the mockup above based on what he shared with me. … From this, we’ve learned at least one thing: competing with the iPad by trying to be the iPad.. doesn’t really work. … But they’re not. Rather than taking on Apple on their own court, they’re moving to keep a lock on a game they’re already kicking butt at (the e-reader market), while upping the odds that anyone weighing ‘iPad or Kindle?’ will be swayed in their favor. By launching with a 7” tablet (and only a 7” tablet), Amazon is making it clear: they don’t want the Kindle tablet to be the iPad. They want it to be everything the iPad is not. – They want it to be small, and comfortable to read in bed. This is a Kindle, after all. For many folks who just want something to read in bed or throw into their bag to read on the train, the iPad’s nearly 10-inch display can feel a bit gigantic. – They want it to be cheap.”
GigaOM: “Instead of a full-fledged Android tablet, Amazon’s new Kindle slate runs a forked version of Android under the hood that no user is likely to ever see. – The 7-inch tablet takes a cue from the Barnes & Noble Nook Color; arguably the most successful non-iPad tablet if it fits your definition of one, and likely to see a hardware refresh soon. Amazon’s tablet will use a completely customized interface, not have Google apps of any kind, nor will it access the Android Market. It will run apps from Amazon’s AppStore. … Those wanting something smaller than a tablet but bigger than a standard phone may be more interested in the newly announced Samsung Note.”
VB: “So what of the rumored 10-inch Amazon tablet? That device, which is said to run a quad-core processor and be a more direct competitor to the iPad, is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of next year if the 7-inch tablet does well enough. – Amazon may forgo releasing a touchscreen version of the traditional Kindle, Siegler says, but that’s still speculation so far. Intriguingly, he also says that Amazon is working on a multi-touch tablet/e-reader hybrid device that runs on an E-Ink screen.”
pC: “Even if Amazon is cutting out some bells and whistles out of its tablet, it is offering users a lot more: a host of usable cloud services; some free services; and a low price. This may finally turn out to be the Android(ish) tablet fit to fight the iPad stronghold.”