Blogs on Kindle a Failure or Just Overpriced?

Piers Fawkes of PSFK has not been a fan of the Kindle and I can’t blame him.

Recently, their rather popular blog became available on the Kindle with a 14-day free trial and then the standard Kindle blog subscription rate of $1.99/month.  Here’s what happened:

During the first two week period of sales we added a button advertising the service to all our newsletters, website pages and RSS feeds – approximately 250,000 impressions. As some of you may remember, I penned the opinion piece ‘Kindle’s Not Working‘ last week and these sales figures surely prove statistically that Amazon’s technology is a failure when it comes to blog publishing and readership. It’s crazy to read that the tech media continues to be deluded about Kindle’s success when even with a 14 day free trial and massive awareness among our readership we can’t muster more than one $1.99 a month subscription.    LINK

Now, it isn’t really all that surprising that so few people decided to subscribe to the PSFK blog but I wonder if it has more to do with the $1.99/month pricetag combined Kindle’s failure as a rich media device – and it is a failure with no pictures, no video, etc.

Think about it.  If you are anything like me, you read a fair number of blogs.  In fact, I would say that I currently have over 50 blogs subscribed to in my GoogleReader.  If I wanted to even come close to replicating that experience on the Kindle it would cost me around $100/month or $1200/year just to read blogs that completely free online or via my iPhone.  On top of that, the Kindle is a completely inferior blog reader due to the aforementioned lack of rich media capabilities (or color, for that matter!).

So, while I am sad to hear that the Kindle will not be a revenue-generator for blogs, I think it was foolish for anyone to think otherwise given the overall picture.

Lauren Luke a Model New Media Entrepreneur

PSFK has a good look at Lauren Luke, a lovely young woman from the UK who has turned a hobby of selling makeup on Ebay into a full-fledged business thanks almost entirely to her simple makeup how-to videos she posted to YouTube.

While selling beauty products on eBay, a 26-year-old Lauren started posting her homemade make-up tutorials on YouTube to help her customers understand how to use the cosmetics better. Her candid, sweet ‘n simple videos quickly became popular how-tos, and within a matter of months, Lauren become the most watched YouTube personality in the UK.

Now Lauren is launching her own line of makeup and selling it via her own website.  Before offering a single product for sale, Lauren has the benefit of literally millions of fans who already consider her a trusted voice.

This sort of story would simply be impossible even ten years ago.  Today, thanks to the internet, individuals with a great idea and a lot energy can literally make their dreams a reality.

The most important part of this story is that Lauren never set out to sell her own line of makeup.  She started out by freely offering advice and support in an area she knew well.  Her goal was to get people to buy stuff on Ebay, sure, but more importantly she was enjoying directly connecting with people and creating a social network from the experience.

By building herself first as a trusted expert and not as a salesperson, she is now able to launch a business at a time when many business are folding.

Lauren is also a great example for those who think the whole idea of being an internet entrepreneur is just a pipe-dream.  It’s not.  The mistake most people make is that they fail to work hard at something they are passionate about and instead focus on sales from day one.

EBay + Video = Idea Who’s Time Has Come

Just yesterday I was discussing with my parents that it was too bad there was no video integration on EBay for sellers.

Not only would a video of an item potentially provide the buyer with a more complete view but would allow the sellers to try their hand at being real advertisers. I imagined that EBay should do a deal with 12Seconds since that would give them an existing archetecture and limit just how long a video could be.

It’s an idea that must be in the air since I discovered a very similar take over on the excellent PSFK blog:

One obvious way to address these fears and uncertainties is to include a video player where people can post footage of both themselves and their products.  But as far as we’ve seen, there has yet to be a serious push to include video content on auction sites. If you visit eBay, for example, you’ll see an interface that allows you to post pictures and descriptions, but there is no video player to be found.

That’s why we were happy to find that users of video sites have created their own solutions. YouTube has an online auction channel, YouAuction, that offers a way for sellers to showcase their goods in detail and in motion. Ebay users can then include the video link in their auction posts, giving the buyers a bit more assurance about the potentially risky purchase they’re about to make.

I like YouAuction but still think a direct integration on the EBay site would be extremely effective and help set Ebay apart from the growing number of competitors.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Bidding Begins with a Twist at Bidboxr� Auctions (seomashup.blogspot.com)
• 5 Reasons Why Your eBay Auctions Fail (tlmarketing.net)
• How Can I Use My Website in Conjunction With Ebay? (articlesbase.com)

The Rise of the Curator

I wrote some (here, here) about the rising prominence of digital curators and how they are becoming a major force in driving web traffic.

I guess the term came up a bunch at this week’s PSFK conference, enough so that Grant McCracken brought it up in his blog a couple of days ago:

“Having been a curator once, my ears always perk up at the mention of the term  I am pleased that the term has taken on new meanings and new currency, that it has escaped the dusty corners of a museum and gallery world.  It and me, both.  Still, I wonder what this term is now being asked to mean, and why we should now find it now so compelling and fashionable.”

He makes some very interesting points and his perspective as a classic curator is great.

Power to the People

Those smart folks over at PSFK linked to a great article in the GuardianUK that looked at the rising trend of ARG’s and then asks:

“If ingenious games designers can inspire thousands of people to collaborate to solve a puzzle, could we do something similar to tackle global warming, keep communities safe, provide support for the elderly, help disaster victims, lend and borrow money, conduct political and policy debates, teach and learn, design and make physical products?”

As they point out in the article, some of these things are already happening.  Sites that support micro-lending are showing a ton of growth and this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.  Kluster is another interesting example of a site calling on the power of the people. The ability of the internet to quickly and easily bring large groups into communication forums is just awesome.

The World of the Cloud

Over on the PSFK blog there are a few brief comments from Blip.tv founder Mike Hudack.  I really liked this one:

“We’re exiting the world of studio executives and entering the world of the cloud.”

Not only do I like the sound of that – wouldn’t you rather live in the world of the cloud than the world of the studio exec – but I think it is worth pondering for deeper meaning.

The idea of the cloud in modern parlance is a way to describe the relative grouping or massing of something, be it opinions, topics, ideas, etc.  An example is the “tag” cloud on the right side of my blog.  The larger the tag term the more often I have used it.  The “cloud” acts as a visual representation of my tag usage.

So, if we are entering the world of the cloud this infers that we are entering a less centralized time for creativity.  That’s pretty exciting.

Walking the Branded Content Thin Line – MTV, MySpace et. al.

Nice little piece on a site about the PSFK conference that looks at two pieces in BusinessWeek (here, here) exploring, first, MTV’s marketing plans in the new media world and then examining the backlash on MySpace and other social sites from users tired of being bombarded with ads or being drawn into what first appears to be some sort of useful or entertaining realm only to find themselves being suckered into an unwanted pitch or campaign.

As we move deeper and deeper into the world of Branded Content and have brands get more involved in directly financing and distributing original content, it will be interesting to see who various companies will navigate these tricky waters.  We’ve already seen what happens when advertisers try to trick or deceive their potential customers.  Instead, brands need to offer something truly useful and/or entertaining along with their band message, not tied up together into a messy knot.