The Future of Reading?

 Commentary  No Responses »
Sep 192012
 

The Future of Reading?

Recently, Amazon released new Kindle models. With this introduction Amazon is beginning a push to integrate their Kindle e-books with their Audible audio books. Recently, I’ve noticed that if you buy the Kindle version first, you can purchase the corresponding audiobook version for a greatly deducted price. As I recall, the deal would be about $16. The idea is that you can read an e-book and switch to the audio version for listening on the go. The beauty is that the version are synced. Meaning, the versions can pick up where you left off in the other format. 

How will combination ebooks and audio books change the face of learning? Some people find it hard to sit for long periods of time reading a book. If, after an hour of reading it might be useful to get up and go for a walk… and, while you are out, continue listening to the book you were reading.

 

Bottom Line

This is an idea that will shape the future. 

 

Notes:

This is a quick post. There may be some incomplete thoughts and other typographical errors. This was written while listing (live) to Amplified, the 5by5 podcast with Dan Benjamin and Jim Dalrymple. iOS 6 comes out later today.

 

Harvard Business Review, do you want to sell more articles?

 Commentary  No Responses »
Jul 192012
 

July 19, 2012

12:39 PM

While reading a book on a Kindle electronic reader, it came to me that there is not an easy way to order, buy or read the reference materials at the end of each chapter. It would be great if there was a way to get a preview, order, buy and read the article inside the Amazon ecosystem.

Harvard Business Review, do you want to sell more articles?

Notes: The book is The Innovator’s Solution. There are a lot of articles that interest me in the chapter end notes. There seems no easy way to order and buy them yet.

Original title for this post: Reading Resources – Increasing Sales

Lubricity of Commerce

12:46 PM

Postal Service to test lockers, following Amazon’s lead

 Commentary  No Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Fascinating article.

 

Postal Service to test lockers, following Amazon’s lead:

 

Credit: Courier Express & Postal Observer

The U.S. Postal Service plans to start testing its own locker system for packages, similar to the lockers that Amazon.com has been rolling out on a trial basis, according to a report this week by the Courier Express & Postal Observer news site.

USPS will test the system at a variety of locations in Northern Virginia under the name “gopost,” according to the site.

 

(Via GeekWire)

Questions:

What if the USPS placed these lockers in high density areas, areas that had access to a warehouse nearby?

Could the USPS do same day delivery of items from a warehouse a few miles away to a locker close to where you live or work?

What kind of premium could be charged for such speedy service?

Would people value it enough for the USPS to make money?

Other thoughts

Time will tell if something like a more centralized delivery system could work. For a while I’ve thought that the USPS would put some sort of locker-box (Like the ones apartments have) up the street for the 50 or so house on this block. Mail could probably be delivered in less than 15 minutes for the whole block rather than what is probably an hour now. Certainly there would be much less walking for carriers. The USPS delivery vehicle could probably be parked less than 25 feet from the locker-box and perhaps as close as 5 feet.

Amazon Release Day Delivery

 Commentary  No Responses »
Oct 182011
 

95de5e62c3fe49595740c8161d7fdb27

Just saw the note above on an Amazon page for a book being released later this month.

 

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com

This title will be released on October 27, 2011.

 

 

Four Firms to Watch in Consumer Technology

 Analysis, Commentary  No Responses »
Oct 012011
 

The four consumer technology and Internet firms to watch over the next five years and possibly beyond are, in no particular order.

  • Apple
  • Amazon
  • Facebook
  • Google

These firms are starting to have overlapping products and services.

  • Books
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Social Services
  • Content Consumption … (New types may be created in the not to distant future)
  • Communications (Phone, IM, Email …)
  • Images / Photography
  • Community (similar to Social Services) [sort of like Meetup.com]
  • Cloud storage – Apple – iCloud, Google – Gdrive (?), Amazon – Cloud Drive

 

Notes:

These firms have been competing in similar spaces for a while now. Apple has been selling music in the iTunes Music Store since April 2003 and Amazon has been selling MP3′s since September 2007. Google recently introduce Music Beta by Google.

Will Facebook get into streaming movies? They recently added Spotify integration to make their music offering more robust.

Amazon has a streaming movie service, Amazon Instant Video, and Google has YouTube. What will happen to Hulu? Will one of these four players make a move to buy it or create a strategic partnership?

Amazon – Missing Sort Type – Kindle Format

 Commentary  No Responses »
Sep 102011
 

KindleAuthorPage

Odd, there is no clear way to just display an authors books as available by format. In this case I was hoping to only see books that are available as Kindle ebooks.

Kindle Changes – Apple iOS App

 Commentary  No Responses »
Jul 262011
 

Terms of Service – Compliance

See the difference between the two screenshots? The one on the left has the “Shop In Kindle Store” button that takes you to the Kindle store in Amazon.com to buy books. The link was removed to comply with the terms Apple has set forth. I’ve never used that link to buy books. Of the sixty or so, free and paid, books I’ve bought for Kindle, all have been done via the Amazon.com store on a computer.

BEFORE

IMG 0204

 

AFTER

IMG 0209

 

 

Ebooks in Education – Amazon Kindle

 Commentary  No Responses »
Apr 172011
 

 

Below is a screenshot of a webpage Amazon.com has for a finance book that presumably is used in colleges and universities.

There are more sections of highlighted text on the page that are not shown in the screenshot. The Public Notes section has no notes. The readers, students, could write in notes for a section of text and their notes would be easy to see on their own Notes page on the Amazon site. Notes they make public would presumably appear in this text box.

Screen shot 2011 04 17 at 11 32 44 AM

What would be interesting is if it would be possible to join a group, think class or book club, to read and share notes with. This could engage students and readers more. If half the class highlighted some text it would probably be worth talking about in class.  The notes people write would enable a better discussion because reader recall would presumably be faster when text the person wrote was presented. The internal database of the mind would be faster for searching and synthesizing the thoughts and ideas of the book and passages.

Notes:

Link to the page for the book screenshot above. Perhaps more passages will be highlighted by the time you visit.

 

 Older Entries