Business Case for Amazon "Silk" Fire

I noted when first hearing of it that the Amazon Silk browser seemed big from a tech standpoint, and couldn't resist a quip. Business Insider makes the case that the browser is revolutionary from a business standpoint: Not only does it make web browsing on Kindle much faster, it:

• will give Amazon exceptional insight into what consumers are interested in, how they use the mobile Internet, and what they want to buy
• makes the Android operating system, the platform upon which the Kindle Fire runs, much less relevant (and, therefore, much less powerful).
• is Amazon's browser that will control the consumer's interface and data—and search window—not the operating system. Google's software, in other words, has basically become a device-driver.

So BI says. And the argument is persuasive, and why media types need to pay big attention not just to the distribution channel, but also the technology.

MediaShift/ONA Mixer in Boston

Come meet Dorian Benkoil and Mark Glaser, founder and editorial director of PBS MediaShift, on Wednesday, September 21, in Boston, to help kick off the Online News Association's annual conference. The first round is on Media Shift, just find the guy in the hat! Click here for more information.

Wednesday, September 21 · 7pm - 9pm
Location:
Storyville (formerly The Saint)
90 Exeter St.
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 236-1134



This mixer, co-hosted by MediaShift and the ONA, is sponsored by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Please RSVP for the event with this form.
(Note: You don't have to be registered for the #ONA11 conference to attend the mixer.)

Amazon as the Biggest Media Company? (UPDATED)

This post has been UPDATED to add content and edit with further thoughts, facts and observations. (Marked with **)

= = = =
This is quite an assertion from Wired.com:

Amazon has swiftly become the most disruptive company in the media and technology industries. Its potential in this space is simply off the charts: bigger than Apple’s, bigger than Google’s or Microsoft’s. It’s becoming a purer version of all three.

OK, well, maybe. Yes, Amazon is huge and hugely influential. But c'mon. The Wired story looks at all the things Amazon "could" do, asserting they will do them. Amazon can become a true media producer, can become a platform on which others build -- can do a lot of things.

So can Google or Apple (or maybe even Microsoft). But it's not a foregone conclusion they'll succeed. Or that they, by launching various ventures, will find them profitable. Or even that they can produce reams of great content -- something they have tried, pulled back from, and are trying to do again. They execute their Web commerce business like a charm. Their Kindle was a first-to-market leader that has, **if not created a category, made it truly viable, as Apple did for MP3 players with its iPod.

But let's not forget that Kindle lost significant market share after the iPad came out and offered not only a seamless way to buy and read books with great functionality, but also -- perhaps most importantly -- worked with publishers on pricing in a way Kindle never had. And let's not forget how the iPhone lost market share after Google's Android took hold.**

The story makes the case that Amazon will eliminate the middleman. That's something they've done for years -- exploiting inefficiencies, using technologies, gathering data, squeezing more. They're adept and disruptive in the way all great Web companies are. I like but don't love the Kindle (which you'll see on this blog) because it was (and is) a closed platform that makes it hard to do a lot of the things one can on the open Web, and that requires you to license a book the use of which is controlled by Kindle (which at least now lets you read on just about every popular screen -- from laptop to Blackberry; though not, officially, the Nook, eh?).

But it's not like Google doesn't know anything about eliminating inefficiencies, or being an engine of commerce. Or that Apple doesn't know about having direct relationships with consumers. And, don't forget that the Android upon which the Kindle is based -- even if it is forked from Google's -- was created by Google.

Amazon’s Future Is So Much Bigger Than a Tablet | Epicenter| Wired.com

News Consumption Tilts Toward Niche Sites - NYTimes.com

Readers have peeled off into verticals of information — TMZ for gossip, Politico for politics and Deadspin for sports, and so on.

That's what the NYTimes says. Like this is news?

Rafat Ali on Entrepreneurs '/ Mike Arrington

"You really don’t have the hustle unless you’re the owner. If you aren’t the owner, you’ll never have the passion that the owner has.

For you, did that passion diminish once you sold {PaidContent to the Guardian U.K.}?

It did. It’s like a switch in your brain. The moment you sell, that switch goes off – [then] the light dims slowly. That’s what has happened with every entrepreneur I know.

peHUB: Rafat Ali on Mike Arrington: “You Just Have to Move On”

Social Media's Nuanced Differences

In the Social Journalism Educators group on Facebook (which I believe is invite only), @emilybell of Columbia U's Tow Center alludes to a great point: Understanding the differences among social media is a core piece of knowledge, and how use them in a given situation a core skill. I've used Facebook to reach out to certain types (for example, suburban mothers of school-age children for one hyper-local news project), Twitter and LinkedIn for other groups or purposes. Am still learning Google -- yet another one to learn -- which at this point seems biggest among the tech influencers or 'digerati.

There's also what I might call the "serendipity factor." Sometimes you discover that an unexpected network is big among your community. With PBS MediaShift and a NY local tech blog, for example, we've seen the occasional spike in traffic from StumbleUpon, a service we had not previously concentrated on. I have even seen some spikes in activity from niche  networks, such as AllTop (which if memory serves is run by uber-marketer Guy Kawasaki). It also changes over time, so it's important to pay attention to the flow, and the changes in use of and abilities of the tools. When Google+ really opens up, and when it releases an API, we'll probably see spikes there. Here's a project I'd like to work on and contribute to: A tool that has the intelligence to do a lot of this for you: IE, it knows that Google+ will work best in this instance, Facebook in that, Twitter in another. I just plug in my content or my need, and the tool decides where and how to send it. We're seeing some nascent attempts (SocialFlow, Measured Voice) but none that yet quite get it right and load balance among all the social media and are able to quickly incorporate the unexpected spikes in new networks.

Beyond iPad: Kindle Edition

Here's a bit of proof that publishers are thinking beyond the iPad. Kindle, shortly after my previous post  giving market share reasons for moving beyond the iPad, came out with a Web app version of its interface. The pictures below show a key difference, and herald a battle between Apple and media app makers. The top image is a screen grab of the Kindle iPad app. Below, the Web app. Can you spot the crucial difference?

Give it a shot before reading on. Click on the image if you want it larger. OK, here's my answer SPOILER ALERT: The key difference is the "Kindle Store" button in the top right of the Web app version. Like the Financial Times before it, Amazon has decided to try to entice users to access its materials on the Web.

By doing so, Kindle avoids Apple's prohibition on having a direct "buy" button to get books from within an Apple-approved app (other than Apple's own iBooks). People go to what is actually a Web site to the get the Kindle Web app, rather than to Apple's iTunes store.  And when they get the app, they get a little button popping up (similar to the FT's) asking them to install Kindle "Cloud Reader" on their home screens. That creates a button much like any app button (see the image at bottom of this post to see how the FT's looks).

If people start using the Web app, Kindle can sell more books directly from iPad users and get around any other onerous restrictions Apple may place. (Yes, Apple could, I suppose, sniff for Web apps on its devices and start to defeat them. But that would likely start to chip away at some of the love Apple gets from users of its tablets and spur at least incremental sales of other, more open ones trying to get traction, such as the Acer tablet released today in the latest Android Honeycomb standard.)

Kindle creator Amazon might also another motive beyond direct sales getting its own user data from people using the app, rather than ceding it to Apple, which doesn't share. Plus, anyone who uses a Web app gets to keep 100% of the revenue they make, rather than giving Apple the 30% cut it takes from people who purchase apps through iTunes. (The 30% argument is applicable for FT, if not Kindle.)

The technology making this all possible is HTML5, the latest version of HTML, which when combined with other also open code like Javascript gives publishers the ability to do some pretty amazing things from within a browser such as Safari or Windows, and not have to write a device-specific app in a proprietary platform such as Apple's iOS. Yes, iPad is the dominant tablet device and will continue to be for some time. But it's not the only one. And people want to make apps that aren't beholden to the iOS operating system, ones that are more flexible, probably cheaper over time, and also give the creator more control.

The FT Web app button is shown bottom left here. It looks like an app button.