Why I love Amazon, they just get it
Couple things popped up in Reader last week whilst I was whiling my days in sunny Mexico. Well, ok, not that sunny, mostly rainy, really, but still, while I was away.
Lotta Kindles sold
First up was the TechCrunch report that they had a source close to the company suggesting they’d sold 240,000 Kindles so far. Which is pretty close to Wall Street estimates though Amazon itself remains mum on the topic. But if that number is true or close to true, then it’s on par with the initial launch of the iPod.
Almost without fail every skeptic I’ve read has been someone who didn’t own a Kindle (as opposed to my love of the Kindle unsupported by actually owning it). Whereas browsing through the reviews on Amazon (and there are a *lot* of them) as well as anecdotal evidence from blogger reviews, nearly everyone who actually has one really likes it. If Kindle 2.0 comes out as rumored with much improved software and hardware? I can see this thing pulling in ever greater adoption, not meteoric as the iPod was, but definitely an acceleration. I mean, I got an email from Amazon sometime last week noting that the Kindle library was now up to 145,000 titles. Publishers are definitely taking notice.
I’d be curious to see what would happen if Amazon released a free iPhone reader/shopping client for the iPhone. To me, what Amazon should care about is the number of possible clients, the more clients the more downloads the more publishers will put their content up meaning more people will want clients. Cycle. Virtuous. It would ultimately sell more Kindle hardware as I really don’t think most people want to read long form content on their iPhone. Of course, sadly, I’m sure Apple would never let this happen. At any rate Amazon wouldn’t really do it anyway.
Buying AbeBooks
The other thing that happened was that Amazon bought AbeBooks! When I read that, I had kind of a “duh!” moment and was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier. I routinely check Abe or Alibris for random stuff that doesn’t come up on Amazon for whatever reason, small release, out of print, particular editions, etc…
It just goes to show that Amazon buys smart, not big. While everyone else is looking to spend a billion dollars on the next no revenue startup, Amazon buys up the non-flashy companies with, most likely, modest valuations that make a ton of sense to Amazon’s actual business. The press release says AbeBooks will pretty much stay independent which is, I guess, similar to what happened when they bought DPReview. I wonder, though, if sort of in an inverse IMDb move, they’ll use the main Amazon.com site to drive more traffic to Abe, such that book searches may also start including AbeBooks hits. If they do that, how does that affect their current used book sales or will Abe hits start showing up there as well? Hmm..
Social Book Networks
As a side note, they also get a large but not majority stake in LibraryThing which I’ve heard of. This is a direct competitor to Shelfari which Amazon had a large stake in but I hadn’t heard of. The one I see the most, though, in this space is GoodReads.
I suspect something like one of these startups is going to see greater integration with Amazon over the next couple years especially as digital downloads of music and books becomes more mainstream. They’ve started it already with their “Your Media Library” page. Which gives you a different view into the stuff you’ve bought. Currently, it isn’t the most interesting page, its primary functionality seems to be to let you re-download already purchased MP3’s, but clearly web 2.0 and what not dictate that social networking should be a greater part of all this.
I’m just saying. Everyone seems to underestimate Amazon and assumes that they don’t know what their doing. Honestly, though, I don’t see where that comes from. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been impressed by how much Amazon simply gets the internet. Sure they do some stupid crap with the one-click patent and what not, but aside from that… Remember when the world thought it was crazy that Amazon was spending so much effort adding non-book categories to their store? Why are they doing that? They should just focus on books! Yeah… that would have been great advice to follow. Anyhow, if I had anymore money, I’d probably be buying more AMZN.
