Amazon

Apple, Publishers, and How eBook Price Fixing Changed the Market

In 2009, several major publishers announced a huge pricing change for eBooks; retailers would sell them only at the price set by the publisher, and no one could apply any discounts or coupons. The move was anti-competitive and clearly aimed at attacking Amazon, but what really struck everyone was the company behind the curtain. Apple had just announced the iPad, and they seemed quite confident that the projected $12.99-$14.99 prices for iBooks would not be undercut, a suspicious claim since Amazon sold those titles for $9.99. The assumption was that Apple had worked with the publishers to create this price-fixed…

Gear Bits

Can You Remember Your First Ever Order from Amazon?

Do you order items from Amazon? If so, do you remember your very first order ever? I couldn’t have told you on a bet, but the other day I found out that it is possible to look back and see every order that you’ve ever made. If you sign into your account and go to Your Account/Your Orders, you’ll see your orders from the past six months. But if you go into the drop down menu on the upper right corner, you’ll have the option to go back to the very first year you ordered, and once in, you can easily navigate to…

News

Amazon Introduces Coins for Kindle Fire Users

My sons will be super excited to learn that Amazon has provided their Kindle accounts with 500 free Amazon Coins which is basically worth $5. The company just announced the coins which can be used to buy apps, games and in app purchases from the Amazon App Store and on the Kindle Fire. While it sounds like each is worth a penny, it is actually an even better deal since there are discounts when users buy additional coins in bulk. Savings of up to 10% can be attained buying the coins, so if/when you stock up, go big! I can…

Gear Bits

Amazon Is Looking for Feedback on Their New Television Pilots

Looking for an idea of what to watch this week? Amazon is following in Netflix’s footsteps and gearing up to launch their own original content, but they’ve crowd-sourced their choices. They have twelve original pilots, from kid-friendly to decidedly adult. You can offer Amazon feedback on what you liked best, which they will use in their determinations of which gets greenlit. We watched two tonight — Alpha Dogs and Onion News Network, and I have to say that we were impressed with the quality of both shows! Alpha Dogs was the better show by far. The concept was a bit…

eBooks, News

Amazon Buys Goodreads, but Is It a Good Deal?

Amazon announced today that they’re buying Goodreads, a social book site that lets you review books you’ve read, and look for recommendations based on your reading list and the books your friends are reading. Needless to say, this is a slam dunk match for Amazon and Goodreads, as they really can complement each other nicely. There are a lot of reasons why this is good for everyone (Amazon, the Goodreads team, Goodreads users and Amazon Kindle users), but it does strike me that Goodreads being off the market is a potential loss for a few other big ebook players…let’s look a little…

Gear Bits

Amazon Reminds Us Why It Is Such a Great Place to Shop

This weekend my son had a birthday party to attend, but forgot about actually getting a present until Thursday. While he had some ideas he really hadn’t decided, and with the crazy schedule each of us had it just wasn’t clear when he would get to go shopping. At dinner that night we started to talk, and by the end of the night Amazon reminded us why it is such a great place to shop. Let’s dig into the details! After some thinking and whittling the options, my son decided he wanted to get his friend a CD for a…

Music Diary, News

Amazon Introduces “Amazon AutoRip”, Giving Customers Free MP3 Versions of Purchased CDs

If you buy a CD on Amazon but also want to play it on your iPod (which describes my kids), you insert the disc and rip the music to iTunes. That gives you the best of all worlds – and if you use iTunes Match you can then download the tracks on any of your iOS devices. But with fewer and fewer computers (dominated by the move to Ultrabooks and the Macbook Air) coming equipped with a CD drive, customers are increasingly making the move to an all-digital library … so if they use an iPod or other iOS device…

Gear Bits, News

New Amazon Android App Lets You Update Your Photos to Your Amazon Cloud

Everyone wants to get you storing your files and photos on their service, because that gets you into their ecosystem and infrastructure. So with Apple there is iCloud, Google has Google+ and others, DropBox and others offer auto-uploads, and Amazon has their own Cloud Drive. Now Amazon has an app that manages your photos and automatically uploads them to your Cloud Drive and can share to Facebook and other sites. Here is the description: Never lose the photos from your phone again. Get 5 GB of free storage to protect and store your phone’s photos with Amazon Cloud Drive. Access…

Editorials

Binders Full of Women, Bic Pens For Her, and Satire Product Reviews

Satire is probably my favorite form of humor. Everything and everyone are fair game, from products to Presidents. And with the speed at which social media and the Internet can move, it doesn’t take long for a Tumblr meme or Facebook page to get rolling. The latest trend: fake product reviews on Amazon.com. It started with Bic Pens, and now has spread to binders thanks to Governor Romney’s “Binders full of women” comment. But should Amazon let these spoofs stay live on the product pages? Context is key here. First, let’s look at the “BIC Pen For Her” reviews. Bic…

Editorials, Events

Did Amazon’s Kindle Announcements Out-Apple Apple?

My day job is in client facing sales and service, so I spend a great deal of time making sure I present my message correctly. First, we establish the basic facts. Then there’s a discussion of what they mean, implications, risks, etc. Finally, these all lead to the conclusion and (ideally) the implementation of whatever solution we think is best. While my presentations are far, far less flashy than a big tech announcement, I still like to see how companies hype up their products, especially since that showmanship does overlap with my own skills and job needs. Normally, Apple announcement…

Editorials

Where Amazon and Apple Part Ways…

Apple and Amazon have emerged as the heavy-weight market-movers in the personal tech space. They are both huge companies and major innovators and, on many levels, they take almost entirely different approaches. Here’s just one example. Last week Amazon announced a new Kindle and new (multiple) Kindle Fires. Pricing was beyond aggressive, because Amazon doesn’t look to make their money on the hardware. No, instead, Amazon uses the hardware to drive its products, both digital and tangible. Apple, on the other hand, makes their money on the hardware and the digital content that runs on them is, THEY claim, close…

Gear Bits, News

Amazon Deal with Epix Brings Thor, Iron Man 2 and More to Prime Instant Videos!

As a member of Amazon Prime, I absolutely love the Prime Instant Video collection, finding it has a great selection that just keeps growing and growing in terms of the depth and breadth of movie and TV offerings. But there is always room for more – so I was thrilled this morning to hit the Amazon home page and see not one but TWO new deals: a movie deal with Epix and a TV deal with NBC Universal. From the Amazon home page, here is what they say about Epix: Great news for Amazon Prime members—we’ve just signed two big…

eBooks, Reviews

Babbel (and others) and the Advancement of Foreign Language eBooks

A lot has happened in the past few years in foreign language instruction. It’s a global world and thanks to the Internet, you can be taught a foreign language by native speakers from anywhere in the world. You can converse with them and other learners from the comfort of your own home with just a minimal investment in hardware and software. For a number of years there have been computer apps and, more recently, mobile apps that have dramatically improved and enhanced the instructional process, but they don’t necessarily replace the need for good instruction in basic grammar or other…

eBooks, Gear Bits, Outdoors

The Magic Bullet Against Showrooming Is in Running Shoes

Everyone in retail wants to bemoan “show rooming” or the tendency of shoppers to check products out in store, only to buy online. It’s a huge problem, and I am not the only person to point out that customer service can often make the difference between someone shopping in store versus hitting Amazon on their iPhone as they walk out the door. Runner’s World took a closer look at the statistics involved, and came up with some interesting conclusions. First, they looked at a survey that indicated the higher the discount online, the more likely shoppers were to not shop…

eBooks, Editorials

The Value, Or Lack Thereof, In A DVD Collection

Sarah and I are trying to downsize our personal belongings. I have amassed a ton of random movies and television shows thanks to my time at Borders, and Sarah has a bunch that have accumulated over time. However, we both realized last weekend that we haven’t touched our DVD player in months, we have no interest in a blu ray player, and most of our movie and television watching is through Netflix, Amazon Prime or iTunes. So what better way to begin trimming away our crap than by trading in our DVDs for cash or credit towards things we will…

News

Sonos Adds Support for Amazon Cloud Player and… It is a Big Deal

Amazon is making some big moves with its Cloud Player music service. They recently improved the way the system works and now lets you scan your music in much the same way iTunes Music Match does. Now word comes that Sonos has added support for Amazon Cloud Player. As they explain, YOUR MUSIC. EVERYWHERE. FROM THE CLOUD TO YOUR COUCH. Import and securely store your entire music library in the cloud Search, browse and play every song, album and playlist in every room with the Sonos Wireless HiFi System Amazon MP3 purchases are automatically stored in Cloud Player, and you…

Gear Bits, News

Amazon Instant Video Comes to the iPad!

Yesterday when we talked about Hulu coming to Apple TV, my comment was that if Amazon Instant Video was also available, I would no longer have a need for the Roku. Guess what? Amazon Instant Video is now available! Here is the description: Watch thousands of titles available from Prime Instant Video at no additional cost with an Amazon Prime membership and over 120,000 videos available from the Amazon Instant Video store by installing the Amazon Instant Video app. Download purchased and rented videos from Your Video Library for offline viewing on airplanes, road trips, or any time a WiFi…

How to Do It Yourself!

How to get Amazon Prime Streaming Media and Flash Content to Play on your Nexus 7

Amazon Prime Streaming “Ronin” on Nexus 7 Flash is dead…or is it? Although Adobe Flash is no longer support on the latest version of Android 4.1 (Jellybean), that does not mean you can’t enjoy the benefits of Flash content and movies. The move from flash-based content to HTML5 has been long underway but the truth is that the internet is still riddled with flash content including the one of the “King’s of Media”, Amazon Prime. Without Flash it is simply impossible to stream Amazon content to your new Nexus 7 tablet. When you go to the Play Store and…

Editorials

5 Reasons Why the $199 Google Tablet is a Terrible Idea … But I’m Getting One, Anyway

OK, so this was a post I started writing three months ago – when we first started hearing about a $199 Google Nexus Tablet. At the time I thought it was a bad idea – and we didn’t even know who was making it or what the specs might be like at the time! Now that we know that it is an ASUS device, with a footprint essentially similar to the Kindle Fire/Nook Tablet/Samsung Galaxy Tab/etc, with some decent sounding hardware compromises for the price, and the newly announced Android OS 4.1. And guess what – I am more convinced…

eBooks

Amazon to Offer the Entire Harry Potter Series Through PRIME Lending

Harry Potter arrived in ebook form earlier this year, which was exciting all by itself. At the same time, if you already purchased the HP series in book form, it can be hard to pony up again for the ebooks. Amazon has come up with a solution, by offering the entire series through their Kindle Prime Lending Library! From the press release: Read all of J.K. Rowling’s iconic Harry Potter series for free on your Kindle Kindle Owners’ Lending Library now includes more than 145,000 books, including over 100 current and former New York Times Best Sellers SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 10,…

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