Is Amazon Working Backwards?; New York Times Bits Blog, 12/24/09

Nick Bilton; New York Times Bits Blog; Is Amazon Working Backwards?:

"Newsweek’s current issue features some impressive Q&As with people in business and politics “who impact the big stories of the day”.

In the technology portion, Newsweek interviews Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, in order to explore some of the thinking behind Amazon’s business strategy as it moved from online bookseller to selling cloud computing services and the Kindle electronic book reader.

Mr. Bezos always delivers an interesting interview as he’s forced to straddle a very careful line between print and digital: promoting their new technologies and customers, including Kindle readers, without disregarding a much larger customer base of print book buyers. In past interviews, Mr. Bezos has tried to convince people to buy his digital products by comparing print books to outmoded forms of transportation. He told participants at last year’s D:All Things Digital conference, “People loved their horses too,” noting that people no longer ride horses to work just because they once loved this form of travel...

A quick perusal of the comments show customers repeatedly griping about poor screen quality, unattractive device design and the constraints of digital rights management software on books and newspapers. Mr. Bezos may be right when he says an e-reader is better than a book, but the customer satisfaction suggests why so many companies are rushing in to compete with his Kindle."

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/is-amazon-working-backwards/?hpw

Not Yet the Season for a Nook; New York Times, 12/10/09

David Pogue, New York Times; Not Yet the Season for a Nook:

"“Well, here comes the hotly awaited Nook from Barnes & Noble: an electronic book reader in the style of the Amazon Kindle...

Over one million titles?” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos. (They’re also available for the Kindle, but Amazon doesn’t even count them).

Fact is, Amazon’s e-book store is still much better. Of the current 175 New York Times best sellers, 12 of them aren’t available for Kindle; 21 are unavailable for the Nook...

And the “loan e-books to friends?” part? You can’t lend a book unless its publisher has O.K.’ed this feature. And so far, B&N says, only half of its books are available for lending — only one-third of the current best sellers. (A LendMe icon on the B&N Web site lets you know when a book is lendable.) Furthermore, the book is gone from your own Nook during the loan period (a maximum of two weeks). And each book can be lent only once, ever...

So O.K., the Nook is a mess, clearly rushed out the door in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer. “We want to optimize everything quite a bit,” a product manager concedes. The first of many software fixes, B&N says, will arrive wirelessly on Nooks next week. The company also says that it’s working to bring the selection and pricing of its e-book catalog more in line with Amazon’s."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nook&st=cse

Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos [Amazon CEO]; New York Times, 12/6/09

Deborah Solomon, New York Times; Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos [Amazon CEO]:

[Solomon:] "Barnes & Noble claims on its Web site that the Nook has several advantages over the Kindle — for one thing, a Nook book can be lent to friends. You can forward the text to another user.

[Bezos:] The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it.

[Solomon:] You have to pick just one person? What are you saying? It’s like “Sophie’s Choice”?

[Bezos:] It is “Sophie’s Choice.” Very nicely done...

[Solomon:] Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?

[Bezos:] For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

[Solomon:] How quickly are paper books migrating into their digital equivalents?

[Bezos:] When we launched Kindle two years ago, it was 90,000 titles, and today it’s more than 350,000. We’re adding thousands of titles every week. Our vision is every book ever printed in every language, all available within 60 seconds.

[Solomon:] But so much is missing. I see the so-called Kindle store doesn’t carry “The Catcher in the Rye” or “Franny and Zooey.” Is that because J. D. Salinger has declined to authorize digital editions of his books?

[Bezos:] You’d have to ask him...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06fob-q4-t.html