If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering. We have found that, on the Internet, “me too” strategies seem not to work very well. –Jeff Bezos, November 2008 (or so) I was pointed toward a very interesting piece of analysis (along […]
Some Thoughts on Amazon’s Acquisition of GoodReads
Our mentality here is to first do no harm, and make sure that if we’re going to do integrations, users genuinely find it to be a big benefit. — Russ Grandinetti, Amazon VP of Kindle Content (via PaidContent) I’ve been asked by several people what I think about Amazon’s acquisition of GoodReads. It’s funny because […]
Amazon is Many Things, Including a Publicly-Traded Company
Most publishing folks I know always figured that light at the end of the tunnel was probably a train. Now I believe we know it is. Not just by Amazon’s actions now but by what they’ll probably be forced to do in the future… A recent piece by Fortune’s Apple-watcher Philip Elmer-Dewitt caught my eye, at first for its […]
Platform Lock-In and Consumer eBook Prices
There has recently been a great deal of speculation and study as to what is happening – and what will happen – to eBook prices in a post DOJ settlement world. I must admit up front that I, like many, don’t know, though I am following along and am as curious as the next publishing […]
Who Can Pull Off Spotify for Books?
In a previous post, I offered music-streaming service Spotify’s ascendence as a signifier of a sea change in consumer media consumption habits. Millions of consumers — especially the 30-and-under demographic — are opting to access their media via ad-supported free services or paid subscriptions, as opposed to buying and downloading files to own. I suspect […]