Monthly Archives: September 2011

OK, you might think this is about Amazon, but it’s really about Apple’s iPad because it’s been out long enough to track user behavior.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Retailers have found an interesting characteristic of consumers who browse their websites using tablets: They’re much more likely to pull the trigger on purchases than other online shoppers.

That discovery is making retailers focus on tablets ahead of the all-important holiday season, as the tough economic backdrop puts a premium on what the industry calls “conversion”—making sure the shoppers who show up actually buy something.

Tablets still account for only a small percentage of overall e-commerce, but they are punching above their weight. While the conversion rate—orders divided by total visits—is 3% for shoppers using a traditional PC, it is 4% or 5% for shoppers using tablets, says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Many retailers also report that tablet users place bigger orders—in some cases adding 10% to 20% more to the tab—on average than shoppers using PCs or smartphones. Retailers are trying to take advantage of that trend by tweaking their websites to better accommodate tablets and rolling out catalogs that have been developed for the device. “Everything helps,” says Peter Sachse, chief marketing officer at Macy’s Inc. and chairman of Macys.com.

. . . .

For most retailers, e-commerce is the fastest growing part of their businesses, posting double-digit revenue gains each year even as in-store growth remains muted. Around 3% of the nearly $150 billion U.S. consumers spent online last year came via mobile devices, of which tablets are a rapidly growing component, according to market research firm comScore Inc.

While only 9% of online shoppers own tablets, their behavior is encouraging for retailers. Consumers tend to spend more time on the Web after buying a tablet, and nearly half shop from the device, according to a survey of more than 2,300 consumers by Forrester. Tablet owners tend to be wealthier, which gives retailers a self-selected audience of their best customers. They may also be encouraged to spend by less tangible attributes: large touchscreens that draw users into the content, and a portability that helps users get more comfortable than when surfing on PCs.

. . . .

Blake McCrossin, a public-relations associate in New York, says he thought shopping would be the last thing he would do on his iPad. The 30-year-old has since used the Apple device to order everything from clothes to a flat-screen television and has already finished most of his Christmas shopping using it. “The visuals and graphics are amazing, and I get caught up in impulse buying,” Mr. McCrossin says.

. . . .

Many retailers are finding tablet users prefer to visit their main websites directly through a browser, just as they would from a PC, even though some companies have pumped lots of money into creating specialized sites that would work better with mobile phones’ small screens and long load times.

Cosmetics chain Sephora uses the same website for tablets as it does for PCs, says Bridget Dolan, Sephora’s vice president of interactive media. Sephora also has a free tablet app. QVC also says more tablet users visit directly through its website than via its apps.

Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal (Link may expire after a few days)

Passive Guy wants to be excited, but remember that the large majority of tablet owners are using iPads, so they trend higher in income than average. Higher income may correlate more with online purchasing than ownership of a particular device, but we won’t know for sure until lots more people have tablets.

Passive Guy figured we were all out of Amazon news for awhile, but he was wrong.

From MarketWatch, a story that may or may not have any substance:

After a week in which Netflix Inc. shares shed more than 38% of their value, one of Wall Street’s most-bearish analysts raised his rating on the company, saying Netflix could be setting itself up to sell its online video-streaming business to Amazon.com Inc.

Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Securities, lifted his rating on Netflix’s stock to outperform, or the equivalent of buy, from underperform on Thursday morning. Pachter also raised his price target on the stock to $155 a share from $110.

Pachter’s reasons had to do with Netflix’s recent controversial plan to split into separate business operations for its DVD rentals and online video rentals, and specifically, what he sees as an effort to make the video-streaming business look appealing to Amazon  for a potential buyout.

There’s “a method to their madness,” Pachter wrote in a note to clients.

Pachter said that Amazon has always wanted to be in the video-streaming business, but has been hampered by tax considerations due to state sales tax issues. Most states require companies that have physical operations in those states to collect sales taxes on transactions done within those states.

Amazon has so far been able to get around most of those sales-tax issues by virtue of its being an online retailer. Pachter said Amazon would likely have had to begin collecting state sales taxes had it purchased Netflix outright because that company has a wide network of distribution centers across many states.

However, Pachter said a separate video-streaming business from Netflix is more appealing to Amazon, as the company could still avoid enforcing the state sales taxes, and dramatically increase its own video offerings.

“If Amazon were to acquire only Netflix’s streaming business, it could triple the size of its content library, and gain traction as an industry leader,” Pachter said. “Netflix’s streaming has current content deals that provide it with access to movie content during the premium cable TV window, and Amazon has the financial resources to secure additional streaming rights.”

Link to the rest at MarketWatch

Via eBookNewser

Bad news from Ebook Friendly:

So, big question – which ones out of the three new models is available internationally? Kindle Touch is not. Kindle Fire is not.

Only the basic Kindle model, the one with a 5-button control (shown on a picture) can be shipped to non-US addresses. Also, only a more expensive version, with no special offers, which costs $109 without shipping costs and VAT. Good news is that it’s available immediately.

Link to the rest at Ebook Friendly

From Business Insider

From Forbes:

Amazon.com Inc. ramped up the tablet wars on Wednesday, unveiling a new Kindle Fire device and announcing cheaper Kindle e-readers. Shares of Nook maker Barnes & Noble Inc. sank more than 12 percent in afternoon trading.

Barnes & Noble started selling the Nook two years ago in an effort to reshape its struggling brick-and-mortar bookstore business. It has lost money in six of the past eight quarters.

Meanwhile, Amazon stock surged $10.20, or 4.6 percent, to $234.41. Shares of Apple Inc., which makes the world’s most popular tablet, the iPad, rose $1.55 to $400.81.

Investors see Amazon’s new Kindle Fire full-color tablet computer as a potential threat to Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color e-reader, which came out last year. The Fire is about half the size of the iPad, and is similar in size to the Color tablet.

. . . .

The Fire isn’t the only threat to the New York-based bookstore chain, however. Amazon also unveiled three new Kindle e-readers with black-and-white screens and lower prices, further pressuring Barnes & Noble, which is trying to break Amazon’s dominance in electronic book sales.

. . . .

Mark Mahaney of Citi Investment Research said in a client note that he was surprised at the number of new devices, and their cheap prices.

“We had assumed that Amazon would be aggressive with pricing, but not THIS aggressive,” he wrote.

Mahaney said Amazon is touting the gadgets as “premium products at non-premium prices,” but he had not tested them yet to judge that.

Barnes & Noble shares lost $1.69, or 12.8 percent, to $11.52, as investors mulled the impact Amazon’s new devices could have on the Nook’s sales. It was one of the steepest decliners of the day.

Link to the rest at Forbes

If you see this post before the previous Kindle posts, scroll down for background, basics and pictures.

Passive Guy’s early reactions to the new Kindles announced today:

• This is very aggressive pricing by Amazon. Two Kindles will be priced below the magic $99 price level.
• The folks at Barnes & Noble are at whatever the first stage of grief is. Amazon is using its deep pockets to provide serious price competition. An implicit strategy is to suck money out of BN if BN tries to price-match. PG knows a lot of people love their Nooks, but today’s announcement is a dagger aimed at Nook’s heart.
• The price story continues with the Fire. The lowest pre-announcement speculated price PG heard from a serious source was $249. At $199, the Fire costs less than half what the cheapest iPad costs. Apple has no new iPad announcement scheduled until 2012 and may be hesitant to cut prices before then. That would make them look like mere mortals.
• The Fire starts people thinking differently about what the price of a tablet should be. Apple looks particularly premium-priced after consumers start thinking about $199. Is the iPad more than twice as good as the Fire?
• The Fire is positioned to play to Amazon’s strength because it’s all about consuming content and Amazon sells gobs and gobs of content.
• Amazon doesn’t show any sign of giving up on E-Ink screens, much to the relief of lots of current Kindle owners who love reading on that screen.
• The idea of Amazon’s Silk browser on the Fire is to divide the workload of web browsing between the tablet and Amazon’s cloud computing system to deliver web pages faster than iPad or any other tablet or smartphone (or laptop browsing over 3G) can do. If it works and it’s noticeably faster, Silk will add to the techie coolness quotient of the Kindle. PG can envision commercials with the Fire and an iPad browsing side-by-side. PG suspects it’s not a trivial task to copy the Silk browser. For one thing, you probably need your own cloud. He also suspects Amazon may have some patent applications in the pipeline to make life difficult for copycats.
• Passive Guy’s prediction for the holiday season? Amazon will have a mucho-gonzo holiday season, bigger than last year. Mucho, mucho gonzo.
• And for indie authors? Ten gazillion new Kindles under the Christmas tree means lots and lots of sales right after Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Excerpts from a live blog of the Amazon launch from the New York Times:

The Fire will cost $199, Mr. Bezos says. (Remember, the iPad starts at $499.) “We’re delivering premium products at non-premium prices,” Mr. Bezos says.

The Fire will ship on Nov. 15; preorders are being taken now.

. . . .

What Amazon is doing is trying to make mobile Web browsing faster and easier by using cloud computing to do some of the heavy lifting that used to be handled only by the browser in your device, which can’t compete in power with a huge number of computers in a warehouse somewhere.

This is interesting. Everyone expected Amazon to come out with a cheaper, slightly dumber tablet when compared with the iPad. But here the company is trying to innovate. It’s wonky and most people won’t give a hoot how it works. But if Amazon Silk can deliver faster Web pages, people will notice — and appreciate — the difference.

. . . .

Because of the cloud-based storage of the Kindle Fire, no syncing is necessary. And Mr. Bezos goes on to take a swipe at Apple. “That model, that you are responsible for backing up your own content, is a broken model,” he says. The most recently used items, no matter what the content is, will be stored in a task bar/carousel interface.

On the screen is an Apple syncing cord.

. . . .

Mr. Bezos is moving on to the business at hand. He’s talking about a new device, called the Kindle Touch, which he says will be a seven-inch (or so) touch e-ink device that uses an infrared touch system that doesn’t get in the way of the display. He says it will have tap zones on the screen that work for left- and right-handed people. It has a feature called X-Ray, which will let you tap a word and then get Wikipedia entries. When you download a copy of a book, he said, you also will download a side file that contains other encyclopedic information, so you can get to it quickly, and without needing an Internet connection.

. . . .

The Kindle Touch costs $99.

“We have another device,” he says. “Looks exactly like this one. It’s Kindle Touch 3G.”

The 3G will cost $149, and will offer free 3G service as well as Wi-Fi. The Touch offers just Wi-Fi. Both devices require no contract, no fees.

Pre-orders will start today. The devices will ship on Nov. 21.

. . . .

“What if you don’t need touch? What if you don’t want touch?” There is another device, a $79 Kindle, which weighs six ounces, and has four separate buttons on the bottom of the bezel, and a four-way button at the center. This device will ship today.

“We’re going to sell many millions of these,” he predicts.

Link to the rest at New York Times Digits Blog

Left to right:    Kindle Touch, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display - $99

Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display - $79

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi - $199

Passive Guy was heads-down on a client project this morning and didn’t follow the release live.

From the Amazon press release:

• New latest generation Kindle – world’s bestselling e-reader now lighter, faster, and more affordable than ever – only $79
• New “Kindle Touch” with easy-to-use touch screen – only $99
• New “Kindle Touch 3G” with free 3G – the top of the line Kindle e-reader – only $149
• New “Kindle Fire” – the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor – all for only $199

Today, Amazon is excited to introduce an all-new Kindle family: three all-new Kindle e-readers that are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than ever before, and Kindle Fire - a new class of Kindle that brings the same ease-of-use and deep integration of content that helped Kindle re-invent reading - to movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps, books, games, and more.

“We’ve now reached the magical two-digit price point for Kindle - twice: the new Kindle and Kindle Touch are only $79 and $99. Kindle Touch 3G is the new top of the line e-reader with free 3G – no monthly fees or annual contracts – and is only $149,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Kindle Fire brings together all of the things we’ve been working on at Amazon for over 15 years into a single, fully-integrated service for customers. With Kindle Fire, you have instant access to all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, the convenience of Amazon Whispersync, our revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, the speed and power of a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, a vibrant touch display with 16 million colors in high resolution, and a light 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand - all for only $199. We’re offering premium products, and we’re doing it at non-premium prices.”

. . . .

New Latest Generation Kindle–Fits In Your Pocket–Only $79

The new latest generation Kindle is for readers who want the lightest, most compact Kindle at an incredible price. The latest generation Kindle features a new design that is 30 percent lighter at just 5.98 ounces, 18 percent smaller, and turns pages 10 percent faster. Kindle is now small and light enough to fit easily in your pocket and carry with you everywhere, yet it still features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.

The new latest generation Kindle is only $79. Kindle is available starting today atwww.amazon.com/kindle.

New Addition to the Kindle Family–”Kindle Touch”–Only $99

Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch is also lighter, smaller, eliminates battery anxiety with extra-long battery life and holds thousands of books.

New “X-Ray” Feature

Amazon invented X-Ray, a new feature that lets customers explore the “bones of the book.” With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and a deep library of book and character information. The vision is to have every important phrase in every book.

The new Kindle Touch is only $99. Kindle Touch is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch and ships November 21.

New Top of the Line Kindle e-reader–”Kindle Touch 3G” –Only $149

Kindle Touch 3G is a new addition to the Kindle family for readers who want the top of the line e-reader. Kindle Touch 3G offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch – small and light, easy-to-use touch screen, storage for thousands of books, and extra-long battery life – with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle’s free 3G connection means you never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot – you simply download and read books anytime, anywhere in over 100 countries around the world. Amazon pays for the 3G connection so there’s no monthly fee or annual contract.

The new top of the line Kindle Touch 3G is only $149. Kindle Touch 3G is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch3G and ships November 21.

All Kindles have instant access to the Kindle Store with the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle devices, and Kindle customers can now borrow Kindle books from their public library. Kindle books are “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” - on Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PCs, Mac, Android phones and tablets, BlackBerry, Windows phones, and web browsers with Kindle Cloud Reader.

All three new Kindle e-readers also come with special offers and sponsored screensavers that appear when you’re not reading. Customers enjoy special money-saving offers delivered wirelessly sponsored by AT&T, the Dove beauty brand and Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card by Chase. Kindle e-reader customers will also receive special offers in their own backyards from AmazonLocal, Amazon’s local deals marketplace with discounts on local services, products, and experiences. Customers can also choose to purchase a Kindle without special offers and sponsored screensavers.

New Class of Kindle–”Kindle Fire”–Only $199

All The Content–Over 18 Million Movies, TV Shows, Songs, Apps, Games, Books, and Magazines

Kindle Fire puts Amazon’s incredible selection of digital content at your fingertips:

• Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video, including thousands of new releases and popular TV shows, available to stream or download, purchase or rent – all just one tap away. Amazon Prime Members enjoy instant, unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows at no additional cost. Kindle Fire comes with one free month of Amazon Prime.
• Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3, including new and bestselling albums from just $7.99 and individual songs from $0.69.
• Over 1,000,000 Kindle books, including thousands of bestsellers, children’s books, comic books and cookbooks in rich color.
• 100 exclusive graphic novels, including Watchmen, the bestselling – and considered by many to be the greatest – graphic novel of all time, which has never before been available in digital format, as well as Batman: Arkham City, Superman: Earth OneGreen Lantern: Secret Origin and 96 others from DC Entertainment.
• Hundreds of magazines and newspapers – including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Wired, Elle, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan and Martha Stewart Living - with full-color layouts, photographs, illustrations, built-in video, audio and other interactive features are available from the new Kindle Fire “Newsstand.” Kindle Fire customers will enjoy an exclusive free three-month trial to 17 Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ and Glamour.
• All the most popular Android apps and games, such as Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, Cut the Rope and more. All apps are Amazon-tested on Kindle Fire to ensure quality and Amazon offers a new free paid app every day.

Cloud-Accelerated Web Browser – “Amazon Silk”

The Kindle Fire web browser Amazon Silk introduces a radical new paradigm – a “split browser” architecture that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud. The Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content. The result is a faster web browsing experience, and it’s available exclusively on Kindle Fire. Additional technical details are available in the Amazon Silk press release, released today at www.amazon.com/pr. To see a video about Amazon Silk go to www.amazon.com/silk.

Simple and Easy-To-Use

Amazon designed the Kindle Fire user interface from the ground up to make it easier than ever to purchase, manage, and enjoy your digital content. Just like with Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire comes automatically pre-registered to your Amazon.com account so you can immediately start enjoying your digital content purchased from Amazon or shop for new content. All of your digital content is instantly available to enjoy and manage with a simple, consistent experience across all content types.

Free Cloud Storage

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire offers free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Amazon digital content is automatically backed up for free in the Amazon Cloud’s Worry-Free Archive where it’s available for re-downloading anytime.

Amazon Whispersync Now for Movies & TV Too

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire uses Amazon’s popular Whispersync technology to automatically synchronize your Kindle library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across the widest range of devices and platforms. With the introduction of Kindle Fire, Amazon is expanding this technology to include video. Start streaming a movie on your Kindle Fire, and when you get home, you can resume streaming right where you left off on your TV - avoid the frustration of needing to find your spot.

Easy to Hold in One Hand

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire was designed to disappear so you can lose yourself in the content. Weighing in at just 14.6 ounces, Kindle Fire is small and light enough to hold in just one hand and carry everywhere you go. The lightweight, compact design makes Kindle Fire perfect for web browsing, playing games, reading and shopping on-the-go.

Brilliant Color Touchscreen

Content comes alive in rich color on a 7-inch full color LCD touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution and 169 pixels per inch. Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology – similar technology as used on the iPad, for an extra-wide viewing angle – perfect for sharing your screen with others. In addition, the Kindle Fire display is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, which means it is incredibly durable and will stand up to accidental bumps and scrapes.

Fast, Powerful Dual-Core Processor

Kindle Fire features a state-of-the-art dual-core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos.

Free Month of Amazon Prime

Right out of the box, Kindle Fire users will experience the benefits that millions of Amazon Prime members already enjoy - unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video and the convenience of Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items from Amazon.com.

Only $199

The all-new Kindle Fire - with all the content, Amazon’s revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processor - is only $199. Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today at www.amazon.com/kindlefire and it ships November 15.