David Emery OnlineSpeculation on an Amazon iPad competitor
I’d bet on Amazon releasing a true tablet, competing more directly with the iPad than the Kindle currently does, in the possibly-near future.
I think it would be shocking at this point if Amazon didn’t release a Kindle branded Android-based tablet this year. I think they’re the only ones out there that have the marketing reach and volume potential to compete with Apple, but I think they’re behind on hardware and software design (sure, the Kindle is the best eReader out there but it still feels like an Apple product of about 5 years ago).
Visit ➔Amazon: Look at ads and we’ll knock $25 off the Kindle
You agree to use sponsored screensavers and ads at the bottom of the home screen and Amazon gives you $25. I’m convinced a Kindle will eventually be free.
I, too, am convinced that the Kindle will eventually be free.
Visit ➔Streaming or Buying Books: Will Readers Choose a Subscription Model for E-Books?
A Spanish startup called 24symbols is launching this summer with the promise to do just that: provide a subscription service and become the "Spotify for e-books."
I’ve been wondering when someone would do this. I’d argue that for most people they’d be more into the idea of not owning books then they are into the idea of not owning music; I know I certainly don’t re-read books that often, and I for one would cope with tasteful adds contained within if it meant a model like Spotify could work.
Visit ➔Lockers vs Streaming Services
I don't get the idea of music locker services like the one Amazon just announced. If I'm going to stream music from the cloud, why should I continue to buy files and collect them? I've been a Rhapsody subscriber for something like 11 or 12 years and although it has taken a while to get used to, I vastly prefer subscription streaming services over file based music. I've just stared using rdio on my Android and on the web and I love it too. I've used Spotify and it is also excellent (once it is fully licensed in the US).
Amazon’s service is certainly interesting, but if you’re going to pay for a cloud-based music service why not use Spotify?
Personally right now – and this makes me sound pretty backwards, I know – I’m quite content with neither; having music on my iPhone which I have with me all the time eliminates the need for a locker-style service, and I pretty much just listen to new music so Spotify isn’t that useful.
Visit ➔Worldview is here, and it's awesome
Every time you send a campaign, we'll show you who is opening it, clicking links, forwarding it to their friends, liking it on Facebook or mentioning it on Twitter. Here's the cool part—we'll show you this on a map, in real-time, all wrapped in a gorgeous UI.
This is totally awesome – I love a bit of real time data visualisation. Makes me want to switch to Campaign Monitor (although with the amount of mailing lists we operate I think that would be a bit prohibitive).
Visit ➔The Universal Sigh
The Radiohead album ‘The King of Limbs’ will be available for purchase in all good record stores everywhere on Monday 28th March, except in the United States of America and in Canada, where for reasons beyond the purview of this writer it will be available from Tuesday 29th March. On VINYL! On COMPACT DISC! As a DOWNLOAD!
To commemorate this momentous occasion, Radiohead have produced a newspaper which will be given away, free, gratis, without cost to the consumer by accredited vendors from a multitude of locations WORLDWIDE!
This is what I’ve been working on for the last few weeks.
Should be a lot of fun on Monday – I’m particularly excited to see how the photos element turns out. I’ll blog about it in more detail in due course…
Visit ➔Why the Quick Bar (“dickbar”) is still so offensive
It’s a news ticker limited to one-word items, lacking any context, broadcasting mostly topics that I don’t understand, recognize, or care about. It’s nonsensical. At worst, it can offend. At best, it will confuse.
Personally I don’t mind the Quick Bar as a way of surfacing trends, but that’s only because it’s my job to be aware of these things; you should be able to turn it off.
The reason why you can’t turn it off though is the key problem here – it doubles up as Twitter’s stab at monetisation. As Marco mentions, advertising is not the problem here, it’s the implementation in the iPhone client but I think that misses the bigger issue: ‘Promoted Trends’ has got to be one of the worst forms of advertising you could come up with.
From an advertisers point of view you get a tiny amount of characters to get your message across, which is never going to be effective (have you ever clicked on a promoted trend? I haven’t.), with no targeting (when they could be doing very targeted ads as they know what you’re interested in by what you follow and tweet).
Come on Twitter; just have done with it and do in-stream ads and let me pay to be able to switch them off. Simple, effective and not dickish.
Visit ➔Apple working on magazine app template for developers?
According to Anthony Morganti Apple has been so inspired and excited by the latest stream of iPad-optimized magazine applications that they are now working on a magazine-app template for use by developers in Xcode.
Seems like a no brainer to me – they can’t be too happy with Adobe being the mina player in this market. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they come up with a consumer aimed offering for this as well, to sit alongside iMovie, Pages et al.
Visit ➔Introducing Solo
Introducing Solo, the project management tool for the modern freelancer. We're designers and we've loved making Solo. We think that if you try it you'll love it too.
This looks beautiful – I wish that 1) I had a use for it and 2) all web apps looked like this.
Visit ➔