Books Need To Change

This weekend I got to play with the Barnes & Noble Nook ebook reader at their Mall of America store. The design and feel of the device is superior to Amazon’s Kindle 2 and the Android-based bottom color LCD screen makes browsing and buying books as intuitive as the iPhone. The problem is the user experience for doing anything else which is more confusing than what’s on the Kindle right now which itself is not great. By the time I got my hands on the new Sony ebook reader at Best Buy I was convinced that the problem is not the idea of ebook readers but the E Ink technology they are based upon that emulates a paper book.

The book form factor has had a nice run over the past 1,500 years with the last major technology boost in 1450 with the invention of the printing press (or 1230 if you are from China). Since then it’s been continuously improved but has remained about the same from a user experience perspective for hundreds of years. Why digital books have to emulate the established print model doesn’t make sense to me when a color LCD reader can include video and other interactive features that would change the medium as much as the printing press did. In the future, books might look more like podcasts than printed words on a white background.

So I think the book needs to be changed in order to thrive in the digital era. All the existing E Ink readers of today will look very dated in just a few years when interactive digital book readers arrive. Or it could come a lot sooner if Apple decides to launch a 6-inch iPod Touch.

Posted via email from Marketing Technopologist

Related articles by Zemanta

• Barnes & Noble eReader: Kindle Crossed With an iPhone (mashable.com)
• Nook E-Reader Promises, But Doesn’t Deliver (wired.com)

Like Tapas For Your Brain

Seth Godin has collected over 70 ideas from a diverse group of thought leaders in this new free ebook, “What Matters Now.” If you are like me and are looking for a little saw sharpening before 2010, download your copy here.

Posted via email from Marketing Technopologist

In The Future, Everyone Will Have An iPhone App

While watching football this afternoon I read that noted PR and social marketing pro Brian Solis had his own iPhone app. After initially thinking how ridiculous this was I fired up the App Store on my iPod Touch and downloaded the app. After all, the price is right (free).

And what I found surprised me. Not only was the app well designed but the RSS aggregation was as good or better than the best for-pay RSS aggregators for the iPhone (I use Byline but there are several others out there). Of course all you get is Brian’s stuff but this idea is the next logical extension of making your website mobile and your content more sticky. Built with Mobile Roadie, one of the growing online app builders for the iPhone tuned for musicians, the result is a very professional extension of Brian’s considerable personal brand.

So I think that in the future everyone will have their own iPhone app. Or at least they could if they wanted to build one.

Update, 12/14/09: Via Jeremiah Owyang is another batch of personal brand iphone apps from Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferris and Jeremiah himself. Built with MotherApp, these look very similar to Brian’s app. I expect to see all A and B-list bloggers to have their own apps before the end of January.

Posted via email from Marketing Technopologist

When “Value-Added” Is The Main Value

On Black Friday I bought a Blu-ray player along with millions of other shoppers. But I wasn’t in the market for a Blu-ray player. Nothing wrong with the technology and I love to watch movies in HD, it’s just that I don’t watch a lot of movies on optical disc anymore now that Netflix is streaming movies and TV shows on demand. So I was really in the market for a Netflix streaming box for a second TV that doesn’t have an Xbox 360 connected to it. And my budget was about $100.

So on Thanksgiving I reviewed the sales fliers to confirm the deals already leaked weeks ahead of time on several dedicated Black Friday websites. One such deal was a $99 store brand Blu-ray player at Best Buy which claimed in the ad to be capable of streaming Netflix with a firmware upgrade. So I showed up at my local Best Buy and waited in line about a half hour before they opened at 5 a.m. and, sure enough, the box claimed this inexpensive player would stream Netflix.

So I bought the Insignia NS-BRDVD3 Blu-ray player to replace my non up-converting DVD player. This model has only an Ethernet jack so a quick router lash-up was needed to get the player online. Once this was in place, I simply followed the menus and about 2 minutes later was linking my Netflix account to the player, a very simple process. After loading up the Netflix interface I was pleasantly surprised to see not only the Instant Queue but also the genre views exactly like the Xbox 360 version. Since our Xbox is plugged in via Ethernet and not wifi, I was somewhat concerned of buffering over a wifi connection (mixed B & G). But the player works fine with little or no glitches and the quality is really fantastic in both SD and HD modes.

I’m sure the product manager at Best Buy had the Netflix feature as one of the “added-value” items on the checklist for this player but this feaure alone was the entire reason I bought the device. I was looking for a Netflix streamer for about $100 and selected this over the dedicated Roku box because it up-converted standard DVD’s and plays Blu-ray discs. The ability to play Blu-ray became the “value-add” for me in this case. Because I bought it, I’m now a potential customer for Blu-ray discs but more likely one for other streaming services. For instance, I fully expect a future firmware release to support Best Buy’s Napster music streaming service which I would subscribe to immediately. They could also add other services and continue to increase the value of this purchase over time. Or enthusiasts could create alternative firmware, similar to what has been done around Linksys routers, to further enhance this device.

Sometimes it’s not the intended purpose of the device that creates the value proposition for the buyer but how a device can be used in new and interesting ways. I think Best Buy gets this at some level or at least will be producing platforms that can be enhanced over time to create increased value. This will keep me a happy customer and is more compelling to me than any loyalty program.

When You Think Your Day Is Going Poorly, Think About This Person’s Day

Posted via web from Marketing Technopologist

Would You Pay $200 For A Dedicated Twitter Gadget?

No, me neither… wonder if there really is an unserved market for something like this with all the iPhones & Blackberry’s out there?

You know you can use Twitter on a feature phone via SMS. Am I missing something here?

Posted via email from Marketing Technopologist