A New Tablet In Town

I’ve been holding back on discussing tablets, if only because no effective competition to the iPad has appeared.  But this week something significant occurred —  we learned of the Kindle Fire, with a 7“ color  touch screen, web browser and cloud storage, which will give the consumer access to Amazon’s book, music, game, movie and tv content.  The iPad is no longer the only tablet in town.    

Social Media Good For Car Dealerships

Auto makers continue to embrace social media as a marketing tool. Lexus, Land Rover and Ford have all created outlets for “influencers” (usually bloggers), who take new models out on the road and relate their experiences, via tweeting, blogging and video posting. Mercedes has their own invite-only social network for younger customers. And Audi has created an iPad app for their flagship A8.

Technology Spoils Us All

In a November, 2007 Wall Street Journal article on e-book readers, I complained that despite the attraction and dazzle of Amazon’s Kindle, the price would have to come down from its then $399.00 cost.

At the time, I never would have guessed, that by June 2010, the Kindle would sell for $189.00!

Of course its natural that with success comes competition, so it’s inevitable that price reductions follow. But who could have predicted the advances in technology which have now created the iPad? With its swiss-army knife array of features, including a dazzling color display, web, video and app capabilities, oh and an ebook reader and store, the iPad has quickly dated the Kindle and its brethren.

The first generaton iPad costs $100.00 more than the first generation Kindle. Should I bother waiting for a price decrease? Technology spoils us all.

Gutenberg Is So Retro!

Great NYT Opinion piece comparing the virtues of good, old fashioned books to their colder, digital brethren.

The Publishing Tortoise and the Technology Hare

For a long time, I have been critical of the book publishing industry’s procrastination in accepting the web as a sales, marketing and distribution force. It was almost as if publishers believed that the internet was some fad that was going to go away and that people would always want to read their books printed on paper. In light of the financial losses that the music, newspaper and motion picture industries were dealing with due to digital conversion of content, the book publishers’ apprehension was somewhat understandable, yet also frustrating in that they seemed to be avoiding the obvious and needed to develop their own digital content strategy.

Digital Content Pricing Issues

In the glare of last week’s iPad press circus, a case example of the conflict between old and new media content pricing, may have been lost in the glare.

The CEO of one of the world’s largest publishing companies, Macmillan, delivered an ultimatum to Amazon “We want the prices of our digital content to be increased, or else!