Amazon is a fine example of how to get ahead in business by staying close to your customers and listening very carefully to what they are telling you.
The Kindle seems to have taken off like the proverbial V8 at the traffic lights.
Blogging Guru, David Risley, has noticed that Kindle are charging a few pennies for their downloads, which can even include some of your publications. However, he is not too wrapped in the 30:70 split of the purchase price in Amazon’s favour and he also is a bit bemused as to why readers would pay for something that they could get for free elsewhere
It may be instructive to analyse how Kindle has added enough value to a written product to achieve its price point.
Why I Love Kindle
Firstly, I love Kindle’s presentation of a single page, with no need to scroll off the screen. The ease with which you can turn the page adds to this benefit. The Kindle is being rewarded for getting as close as possible to a paperless version of curling up with a good book or reading the morning paper on your commute. For me this is far superior to your typical PDF presentation, especially with two columns, where I seem to spend half my life searching for the top of the right hand column and not scrolling onto earlier or later pages.
Secondly, I love the note taking feature. It really is helpful to annotate in a right hand column and at the end of the article I find I have a list of hyperlinks to the most important bits. When I am doing research, this is a real time saver.
Finally, I guess there is the good old convenience factor. A few years ago, a colleague of mine would whip over to the newsagent and buy an old issue of a computer magazine simply because it included a CD with a software app. that he needed to complete the job he was on. He found it was cheaper and faster than going back to the office to retrieve the copy he had already paid for last month.
And Why Others Like It Too
The Amazon Kindle forum did a straw poll of the ages of it’s participants and found that 70% were aged 40 plus. It is reasonable to assume that this age distribution also applies to the general population of Kindle owners.
The comments of the readers are also instructive. The more mature of us can tell you of a few treats that you are yet to encounter as you move down the highway of life.
One is failing eyesight. Older people value the facility with which they can enlarge the print while maintaining the single screen page presentation. Others mentioned that arthritis made the single button press to turn the page a real benefit.
Two points are worth noting if you are trying to make a buck on the net.
Firstly, a rapidly growing number of the baby boomers are are becoming very web savvy. A lot of them love to talk to their grandkids on the net; and do lots of other things as well. They are now a very significant client group. and a
Secondly, age does things to all of us. So if you are a twenty-something computer whizz recognise that just as your tastes and needs are different from a 12 year old, they are also different from your parents’ and grandparents’ generations. So it is dangerous too rely on your assumptions about older people.
Talk to us, get to know us and you may find we can find a bit in our super fund (401K account) to buy your product.
Thanks But No Thanks, Amazon
Finally let’s have a think about this outrageous 30:70 split that Amazon is offering all you hard working scribes.
In my next post I will suggest a way that you can get around this form of modern piracy.
Bye for now.
