Entries tagged with “amazon” from Paul Lopez Unwired

The ingredient digital ink for Kindle, E Ink, is working with Plastic Logic to develop a reading tablet to display books, newspapers and magazines. Many content owners in the industry view Amazon's middle-man role as unfavorable in that they set the pricing and the layout of content for the Kindle. Since the early 2000's, firms producing the reflective layers of the nanostructured films of titanium dioxide that create the solid white background have come down the learning curve. This process improves reflectivity and contrast while eliminating the need for backlighting. Innovations in bistable voltage have optimized power management. Newer displays, for example, can operate on very low voltage that only charges when the image is updating. Amazon commercialized this type of technology in high volume with the Kindle. Publishers complain that the Kindle doesn't allow for advertising and it is a poor substitute for the feel of pages - they would. Warren Buffet said recently he would not buy any Newspaper publishing company "at any price" because of the business model erosion. I see potential consumer confusion with the proliferation of these devices, especially if the industry takes different directions from Amazon, Apple, Sony, Gannett, NY Times and other publishers struggling to re-invent themselves. 

The Kindle is not a game changer like the Apple iPod was with music. This product has less of a growth curve than iPhones, NetBooks or other consumer devices. People are questioning the grayscale, the price and the experience but some like the aluminum case, the Stephen King eBook, "Ur" and the ability to get any printed book in 60 seconds. For $359, you can shop for a Netbook and get more functionality. The total cost of ownership of Kindle is higher because with newspaper subscriptions, books and other additions, you could run up to $100/month easily. Amazon doesn't break out the sales of their eBook business but they claim it is 10% of overall titles sold. The Kindle is Amazon's call option on the future of reading. I'm afraid that call option will expire worthless, there's a reason books haven't changed for 500 years, they still work!

ECS (E-Commerce Service) from Amazon is one of the best ways to make money on the Internet. They have spent ten years and over $1 billion developing a world-class web service that millions of customers use daily. Developers can build ECS interfaces to their applications that leverage the data used by www.amazon.com, including the items for sale, customer and seller reviews. This also includes most of the functionality that you see on their site, such as finding items, finding similar items, displaying reviews and product promotions. ECS is a web service and application programming interface (API) that is accessible with either SOAP or REST protocols. You can build your own web store to sell Amazon items or your own items, it's an engine you're getting. ECS is free but something alarming may be developing. A Canadian startup, TXTReviews, which allows people to get book and movie user ratings via text message, says they're being shut out of Amazon web services. Amazon admits that they limit access to mobile-focused companies to ECS. Presumably, this is because they say the mobile space is in its early stages. The Amazon infrastructure EC2 or S3 web services are free in exchange for driving traffic back to Amazon's site. On a mobile device, that may not be possible depending upon the availability of a suitable browser or a wide area wireless connection. TXTReviews uses SMS, not a web interface. Amazon would like customers to shop on their site, making this of mutual benefit for the developer and Amazon. Device limitation should not be a factor as new standards for m-commerce are required to facilitate true mobile commerce.