I’ve been impressed by Amazon this past year. If only I’d bought their stock back in the beginning of the year, but alas. But through their backend web services, such as S3 and EC2, they’re clearly branching out in ways that go beyond their core offering as an online retailer, but have the potential to pay off in a big way in the future, if they’re able to aggregate everything and connect it back to their products and services database. I’m also impressed by some of their higher visibility efforts, such as their DRM free music download store. So when I heard that they were also making an effort to a new sheen to ebooks, I figured, well why not? Who better? Well, after seeing this quick comparison, game over. Amazon’s product is broken and a complete disappointment.I’d start off simply with the design, I’m not sure if that gizmodo link has those readers displayed to scale, but regardless, the Kindle is clearly a rookie effort by a company that has had no experience in designing people-friendly real world products. A website is one thing, a physical item another (which by the way, I know Amazon gets much kudos with their website design, but I think the way they organize and filter their products is and has always been total garbage). Anyway, it’s humongous, it’s unnecessarily jagged, and it looks like a pocket protector’s best friend.More importantly though, for a company that’s been crucial in pushing Apple to open up their own music formats, I’m appalled at how much restrictions there are to using the Kindle. The EVDO is great. Everything else sucks. You have to pay to view your own files? Seriously? On top of the 400 bones they expect you to plunk down for this? That’s it. Game over. I don’t even have to go into the additional charges to subscribe to blogs and RSS or the fact that you can’t view PDFs on it. I’m still stuck on the fact that Amazon somehow turned the reading rainbow into some bizarro time-share nightmare.What a disaster.
We have now hit a point in time in which advertising is positioned as a value-add, not to marketers, but to users. I can’t say I’m not intrigued by the concept, if only to see if people will buy the shtick or see through it as total BS (ah yes, my first BS-related pun ever).Facebook notes:
Advertising doesn’t have to be about interrupting what you’re doing, but getting the right information about the purchases you make when you want it.
Much appreciated, I guess. And it makes perfect logical sense. This is why the contextual Google ads are such a success. But it fits better on Google, because “searching” has a much more natural bridge to buying. “Socializing,” however, doesn’t have that. Consequently, the ad model feels unnaturally shoehorned into Facebook. Never have I visited Facebook with a product or purchase intent in mind. Not to say it won’t work - at worst, it’ll provide better results compared to the randomizer ads they put out now - but the opportunities for it to work will be much more limited compared to Google, IMO.Also on a separate note, there’s been some recent buzz about Facebook replacing Yahoo as part of the “big 3,” along with Google and Microsoft. That’s the most retarded thing I’ve heard this week. And anyone who thinks so, is by extension, a moron. Facebook gets to be in the big 3 when it stops having its traffic quintupled by Yahoo or when its real market cap hits $37B+, not when internet geeks play chutes and ladders with imaginary numbers.
I already knew that Amazon uses cookie history to affect the recommendations it shows you on its homepage. But this was the first time I’d seen it in effect so quickly… Literally a minute after I’d visited Wharton’s home page.
ESPN’s featured a “Fan Favorites” section on espn.com for several months now, I think. It used to be that I’d often see a pretty witty comment highlighted in their “Featured Comment.” Occasionally racy, but usually appropriately snarky. However, I wonder if ABC’s been tightening up the reins, as I’ve been noticing more and more that the featured comments are bland. For example, this latest incredible insight:
Thanks “fans.” You sound just like the broadcasters now.
