Ready To Buy An E-Reader Or A Tablet

The Holiday Season is upon us and lists are no doubt being written on what to buy our family. And Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others have delivered an array of choices for our purchase pleasure. So what will it be, a Nook, Kindle Fire, or iPad? With so many choices on the market, the decision only gets toucher.

Well hopefully the graph from this article will make your decision easier. Ultimately it depends on what your primary needs are for the device. Do you need it to be a reading device or is watching videos also important. Must it have a camera and do you want to Skype from it. Does budget matter and must it be a tablet when an e-reader is more than enough. And lastly, does knowing that these generations will likely be modified in another 6 months with a next version, change whether you buy the most or least expensive device.

The rise of these e-readers and tablets this Holiday Season will most certainly capture the public eye and the consumers' pocketbook. Which device becomes the De facto winner remains to be seen. We may see an e-reader winner AND a tablet winner, or one device will outweigh them all. The fight is on.

Has Twitter Changed From Sharing To Selling?

Today's article on Ashton Kutcher and his Twitter issues regarding Joe Pa raised an interesting question. Is Twitter no longer the place for naive meanderings about whatever news or gossip you wanted to share, accurate or not, and now simply a marketing tool? How many times have we made a comment about something without knowing all the facts? I can raise my hand and certainly so can Ashton. No one said that all gossip and information was true. Ashton made comments about the Penn State coach and then retracted them once he was more informed. In the world of Twitter, shouldn't that be no harm no foul. Apparently not.

According to Ashton, “When I started using twitter, it was a communication platform that people could say what they were thinking in real time and if their facts were wrong the community would quickly and helpfully reframe an opinion. It was a conversation, a community driven education tool, and opinion center that encouraged healthy debate. It seems that today that twitter has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones tweets quickly become news that is broadcast around the world and misinformation becomes volatile fodder for critics.” It reminds me of the SNL commercial parody about a bank who's business was making change. When asked how they made money, the answer was simple, "Volume".

But in the business world and with Twitter, volume is not enough; a business runs on revenue and that is the Twitter mission. With such a wide audience, it is no longer possible to be wrong without it reaching epic proportions. So Ashton learned the age old wisdom "to look before you leap". Twitter makes it too easy to leap first and say whatever is on your mind. But that is not always a good thing and this lesson may affect more than just Ashton and his tweets. Twitter's prosperity relies on being a marketing tool and not a place for mindless rants.

Adobe Agrees With Apple, No Mobile Flash

If Steve Jobs were still alive, he certainly would be even more smug about his decision to not include Flash on his iPad or iPhone devices. Despite the negative press, despite he competitive difference it could make for Android devices, Jobs was certain it wasn't good enough for his devices. And ultimately, his decision paid off.

Where once Adobe proudly told Apple that they were wrong, they must now back track and swallow their pride. Apple was right. Flash on mobile devices is no more. "We (Adobe) are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers."

Hard for a company to change; that Adobe continues to adapt to a changing web environment and the needs of its users should be welcome news. In the short run, Adobe's stock has been hit, but in the long run, this change was necessary. Survival means adapting to change and not remaining locked in old thinking. For Adobe to make this change is ultimately a smart move.

AOL, Yahoo, And Microsoft Build Ad Partnership

In a bid to compete effectively against Google and Facebook, it seemed the best strategy was one of partnership. AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft have agreed to work together to sell their unsold ad inventory. The article asks a good question, "The idea may seem a bit redundant, considering that all three already have massive reach—plus, if this is inventory they can’t sell on their own, why create a larger pool? Still, with Google and Facebook cutting into the portals’ traditional hold on display, this may be an imperfect answer to a challenging problem for all three."

Google and Facebook have each grown because they have made their sites compelling and valuable to use, and use frequently. As the dominate search engine and social network site, each essentially captures a huge audience making their ad sales efforts successful. In a world where content is king, the challenge for the others is to make their content sites equally as necessary and valuable to the user. With that comes eyeballs and more sold inventory at hopefully higher prices.

It may sound like a herculean task, but it is doable. Users are fickle and their tastes and interests change. New technologies and new content partnerships will continue to shape and change the landscape. No one stays on top forever. Companies stumble and get caught up with protecting rather than innovating. For AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft, there is no time like today to get started.

Welcome To The Tablet Wars; Excuse Me, I Need A Recharge

With the latest release of the Nook Tablet, the players are set for a big battle, Apple vs. Amazon vs Barnes & Noble. Each has a different take and each is offering it's tablet at a different price point too. The iPad is the most expensive while the Kindle is cheapest to buy. And the consumer is left to decide which offers the best value for its investment.

Both Apple and B&N have stores around the country, although the latter is far more accessible in cities large and small. Amazon has been trusted as well with the ability to get merchandise into homes quickly and just as easily accept returns. As far as the tablets themselves, experts will soon uncover what the advantages and disadvantages are for each and confirm what target market they each best serve.

At the same time, they all will struggle with the same universal problem, battery life. Having just emerged from a freak storm, with some homes out of power for a week, people were charging their mobile phones off of their car battery in order to stay connected. Tablets offering more to do than simple e-readers will also see increased consumption require frequent recharging. It will be the company that makes that quantum leap in battery life that will truly become the market leader.

Multi-Platform Content starting From A Different Direction

For years, it seems, content has moved from video to print. ESPN created a successful magazine to further reach its video audience; Food Network and HGTV has also been building a magazine brand to enhance its brand. The strategy seems to have paid off as the magazine has a built in audience to attract. But this strategy has been less attractive coming the other way. Sports Illustrated tried to build a cable brand called CNNSI, but it is now defunct.

So now comes word that Condé Nast will try to build video content as an extension of its magazine brands. "A Condé Nast insider told WWD that (Dawn) Ostroff is planning to hire a small handful of development people — aka D-girls — to plumb Condé’s titles for script ideas and to hit the town and pitch them." While these are shows and not an entire network, the challenge to grow the brand is just as real. I applaud the effort. I believe that good content can extend across multiple platforms. The three key issues to successful growth are quality content, strong distribution, and solid marketing support.

With a built in audience from the magazine, you would think it would be easy to market to your targeted audience. But as CNNSI proved, Sports Illustrated could not move viewers over to their new network. It still lacked enough distribution and awareness to impact ratings. And Condé Nast will need to determine in what new form this content will be delivered, as web video, TV shows, theatrical films, etc. Video now comes in many flavors. Still, it is an important next step and strategically building a Condé Nast seems to be a right move in the evolution and growth of their titles and brands.

AOL Still Has Paying Subscribers!

Talk about hard to believe, AOL continues to receive revenue from customers needing dial up access to email and the web. According to the article, there are 3.5 million dial up customers paying about $17 a month. That is $714 million dollars annually for dial up. That to me is an amazing figure for a dead service. So why can't AOL transition into a new digital business when it has such a cushion still to work with?

AOL still has a strong e-mail service, a number of strong content properties, and a dial up business that is still attractive to certain customers with limited internet needs. What it still needs is people with vision to help set its future course in a direction that integrates web and mobile to its growth. Otherwise, their past will surely keep them from innovating the future.

Where Did All The Cable Subs Go?

As Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and others have been announcing their loss in cable subscribers, the question has been where have all the cable subs gone. The cause has been attributed to cord cutting, low housing starts, and of course, the economy. But now comes word where a good bit of these subs may have switched to. "DirecTV added 327,000 net new subscribers in the third quarter, soundly beating analysts' estimates of 203,000 net new additions." That certainly covers all of the lost cable subs in Q3.

It certainly puts to rest for now the argument that cord cutting and housing starts are to blame. And not knowing the cost for DirecTV, hard to tell if the switch produces a ton of economic saving. DirecTV believes the higher sub growth is due to their NFL Sunday Ticket promotion. If so, then the motives for change are actually due to content. Content is King and in this case, that content is NFL Football.

Will SiriusXM Fall Into The Netflix Hole?

As we are proud to say, "it's the economy, stupid", we still seem to follow the same mistakes rather than learn from them. Netflix clearly fumbled the ball with a huge price increase at the wrong time. And Netflix continued to heap on more misery upon itself with a whole changing of the business model. So is it Sirius' turn to fumble with a price increase?

Sirius had troubles this past quarter with subscriber growth and a price increase on January 1 will only further erode subscription. "The company also had a harder time getting customers to commit to its service once its promotions end. It acquires most of its new subscribers by offering free trials of its service when people buy new cars. The conversion rate of trial subscribers who became full paying subscribers fell to 44.4 percent in the third quarter, down from 48.1 percent a year earlier." The price elasticity model is in place whether these companies want to see it or not. Consumers are rebelling at higher prices by seeking cheaper alternatives or cutting off altogether.

But it seems clear that Sirius is not about to change its pricing policy. CEO Mel Karmazin has said that the company has not heard any issues with its price increase; then again, they haven't put it into effect either. Once consumer receive their bills, there will no doubt be backlash. How it willcompare to what happened with Netflix we can only wait and see.