I love my Kindle. Why? Is it the clear, easy-on-the-eyes screen? Maybe the fact that current books are about 30% cheaper? Or the ability to quickly look up those hard words from ‘Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ like antediluvian? Well those are all reasons why I like my Kindle. What I love is Amazon’s ‘whispersync’ technology that makes whatever I’m reading (or have read) available anywhere, on any device. Forgot my Kindle on the bus — no problem, I can continue reading on the free Kindle I-phone app. Want to read a few pages at work? Easy … log into Amazon on my work PC and a few seconds later I’m reading during lunch. The text is optimized for whatever device I’m using, and every device even knows what page I’m on! Just because I purchased a Kindle, Amazon does not have the audacity to assume I will always have it with me or that it’s the only way I want to read. Imagine if other devices and services worked the same way. Forgot your I-phone or Droid at home — no problem, borrow a generic work mobile, punch in a few codes and it acts just like your phone for the day (complete with your half finished round of Bejeweled.) Check into a hotel for the night, log into your Comcast service, and presto, you’re watching your home DVR or cable channels you subscribe to. Now I know, syncing your phone or DVR is a bit more challenging than syncing a text based book. But there are some pretty smart people working on this and our devices are getting smarter every day, right? Maybe AT&T et al should spend a little less on giant map ads berating their competition, and more on giving customers what they want. Or just try out a Kindle. They might just learn something.
For more on this topic (for the record, I read this story after I wrote my post) go to: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/five-lessons-apple-can-learn-from-amazon/8271
Eddie's Marketing Scrapbook 