As the Chief Innovation Officer of Chicago-based Publicis Group Media, Rishad is one of the most influential thinkers in the North American advertising industry. It is therefore no surprise that the audience was on the edge of their seats listening intently to Rishad`s advice.

We at Spreed found his talk very interesting considering many of his recommendations push newspapers in the direction of a number of the products and services that we provide (mobile platforms, mobile advertising, location based advertising, etc).

Rishad left with 10 recommendations for newspapers to follow in the future that we would like to share here:

1. Be schizophrenic – Only the schizophrenic will thrive. Run two or more business models at the same time but make sure they are very separate. Do not make a big mesh of all your models.
2. Embrace technology – Tech is the new magic. Make sure the follwing ive things are done by the end of this week.
   1. Use an RSS reader and start following your passions through it
   2. Get a Twitter account
   3. Get on Facebook
   4. Get on Foursquare
   5. Go to someone in your company who is younger (probably 2-3 levels below you) and make them your mentor. Take them outside of the company every two weeks and get them to teach you about what is new and upcoming
3. Embrace the blur – Church and state are too separate within news organizations. All elements of a news organization (sales, editorial, technology) need to work together in the same group.
4. Learn fast, iterate faster, make mistakes and don’t be afraid to fail.
5. Do a massive outreach to young people – You want to make the industry exciting. Don`t be swamped with old people. Get youngsters into the industry.
6. Think about what curating, combining and editing really is
7. Platforms – Every company needs a platform strategy. How do you attract new partners? What’s your device strategy (iPad, iPhone, etc)? What’s your search strategy?
8. Make sure that you celebrate the software and technology folks at your organization. Don’t hide them in a room somewhere even if they are strange. Tell them about the business and ask them to solve business issues
9. Think about  the future of your organization. Thank about your organizational design, incentives, benefits, etc.
10. This one was a bit odd and I am not sure exactly what he meant by it, but the industry is not anyone but you. there is not industry but yo, embrace the “muchness”. “This is my dream and I am going to decide how it ends”

Firstly some statistics:

Now for OS 4.0

• Developers can now access calendar, photo library, still and video camera data, quick look, SMS inside their apps.
  • This is great news as event modules can now add events into your actual calendar.
  • Articles can now be shared via SMS within the application without needing to leave the app
• Automated testing tool that Apple uses internally to decided whether an app will be accepted or rejected is now publicly available.
  • This means that the app approval process is much more open and it will speed up the overall approval process
• A few new features: Create playlists, 5x digital zoom in camera, Bluetooth keyboards, spell check, gift apps, Tap to focus video, Places in Photos, Home screen wallpaper, file & delete mail search results, web search from sugestions,Larger fonts for Mail, SMS & Alerts, Rotate photos, Sync IMAP notes, iPod out, Wake on wireless, Folders.
• Multitasking is here! Jobs likens it to cut, copy and paste. “Not the first, but the best.”
• Apps keep track of where you were and can start right back up again.
• iBookstore on iPhone as per our predictions in this blog post
• Better data protection. Encrypt all your e-mail, including attachments with PIN codes.
• Mobile device management. Letting IT managers to deploy iPhones and manage them remotely.
• Wireless app distribution. Companies can push out custom apps over the air instead of relying on an iTunes sync.
  • This is great for corporate apps as they no longer have to be distributed through iTunes

There is much more, but this is all they had time to highlight

iAds

iAd’s is Apple’s new advertising network. They will be managing all the inventory and from the sounds of it they will be taking 40%. All ad units are built in HTML5 and get served up in the application without having to go to an external site. Spreed is doing something very similar, but NO development skills are necessary.

• Jobs says Apple wants to help developers make money off their creations, but says that “most of this mobile advertising really sucks, and we thought we might be able to make some contributions.”

• Jobs says ads are easy on the desktop b/c of search. But people are spending all their time within apps. “This is where the opportunity to deliver advertising is,”

• Jobs: Average user is spending 30 minutes a day using apps. That’s 10 ads per device each day.
• We want to get 1 billion ad impressions per day by the end of the year.

• Jobs: deliver “interaction” and “emotion” – Something that’s in the middle of where Web ads are, and ads on your TV.

• Jobs said it was annoying for people to click on an in-app ad b/c it would take them out of whatever they were doing.
• Devs can add iAd in their apps for a 60% split of the revenues. All the sales and inventory are handled by Apple.
• Ads have access to much of the same APIs as apps, like location and some level of accelerometer access
• Jobs demoed a Toy Story and Nike ad
  • All the animations are interactive, and crazy smooth.
  • It’s not so much about the content of the app, but the interactivity
  • He’s flipping through the app: it’s offering up the history of nike ads, allowing you to flip through the years to see all the shoes throughout history
  • He pulls up the app with the Nike ad. It puls up an Air Jordan 2010 clip

So the run down on iAd’s is that it is great for developers in that it will be very easy to monetize apps. However, this is not a great solution for publishers and media companies. Apple will be taking 40% of all ad revenue and they are administering the inventory (you cannot retain your ad sales teams). In addition I am skeptical as to how deep their ability to target advertising will be. They have one piece of the puzzle and that is strong creative advertising, but they do not address targeting. Because they do not parse, control or index the content and because they do not understand user behavior, it will be hard to do deep targeting which is one of the main promises of mobile advertising.

Julie Ask of Forrester Research backs up my point about iAds not being for big publishers in her blog post on OS 4.0 with these two points

1. We didn’t hear a lot about targeting – making use of past purchase behavior, day-to-day use of applications, etc. We did hear about location. Knowing that I have downloaded and am using the latest Audi application or browsing automotive sites on my iPhone might indicated that I am in the market for a car – that would be valuable information to automotive OEM’s. Knowing that I buy alternative rock music or that I read mysteries adds other dimensions. Location – given the structure of how they sell ads – this will more likely be purchased by large, national companies with stores throughout the country. Location (from the consumer’s perspective) will be more interesting when it helps me find local mom and pop stores that better match my interests.
2. We didn’t hear much on analytics for the advertisers. This will be interesting to watch as the more effective Apple can be in demonstrating ROI – bought movie tickets, purchased a Nike shirt, bought the movie Toy Story – the more advertisers will spend. They’ll spend on branding now, but I think they’ll spend more if they can drive sales.

What is good though is that it will super charge the agencies to begin selling ads as they can utilize their existing skills sets to build strong creatives. Jobs just did to the mobile ad industry what he did to the mobile industry in general 2 years ago.

Where the study falls apart in our eyes is how they compare these stats to the average number of hours a typical European spends reading traditional news/magazines a week (4.1 hours). The study concludes that people are reading news and magazines more on the mobile web than traditionally. This seems like a flawed assumption considering that most of these reported users are in a younger demographic and are probably surfing Facebook and other geographically relevant social networks, not reading a news website.

I have no doubt that in the near future we will see more people reading the news through mobile applications and websites than traditional forms of media. However, it is important that we stay grounded in the statistics and not act to hastily.

An interesting next study for the EIAA would be to segment their data in order to find out how much of the 6.4 hours a week Europeans are spending on actual news and magazine mobile sites.

The mobile web is clearly on the rise and here at Spreed we are constantly asked whether the right mobile strategy for a publishing company is to launch a mobile website or whether it’s best to just launch an application. This is worthy of a blog post in itself, however  simply put we do not think that the two are mutually exclusive. In this increasingly mobile world that we live in, it is necessary to work on both strategies as they each address specific goals and challenges.

The mobile web is great for sharing and receiving links on the go. Mobile applications on the other hand serve the purpose of content discovery. More information to come in a future blog post

Possibly, more interesting is the rise of online news sources on the iPhone. Flurry believes that with the release of the iPad we are going to see an even strong supply and demand for blogs and other online media sources. It is therefore essential that if your newspaper does not have an app now, to act fast. If you wait too long, the online media sources will own the real estate on users phones and other mobile devices.  More below and in the report.

Like gaming, the creation of compelling content in News is a specialized and costly operation. To source and report quality news, companies often have to span various media such as TV broadcast, radio and print, which further increases cost. It’s therefore no surprise that Traditional Media dominates the News category, controlling nearly two thirds. For traditional media (e.g., New York Times, ABC News, NPR, etc.), the iPhone represents a large channel through which to distribute their existing content. The small incremental cost of expanding the distribution of Traditional Media’s core content, and the attractiveness of reaching an educated, affluent and tech-savvy audience, makes iPhone the perfect platform through which to serve news. Looking forward, the iPad creates an even greater opportunity to increase reach because its larger screen size works better works for newspaper and magazine layouts, as well as TV broadcast.

Some 80% of American adults have cell phones today, and 37% of them go online from their phones. The impact of this new mobile technology on news gathering is unmistakable. One quarter (26%) of all Americans say they get some form of news via cell phone today — that amounts to 33% of cell phone owners. These wireless news consumers get the following types of news on their phones:

Wireless news consumers have fitted this “on-the-go” access to news into their already voracious news-gathering habits. They use multiple news media platforms on a typical day, forage widely on news topics and browse the web for a host of subjects.

Among this subgroup of internet-using mobile phone users, Pew found that the vast majority get some kind of news online:

• 72% check weather reports on their cell

• 68% get news and current events information on their cell

• 49% have downloaded an application that allows them to access news, weather, sports, or other information on their cell

• 44% check sports scores and related information on their cell

• 35% check traffic information on their cell

• 32% get financial information or updates

• 31% get news alerts sent by text or email to their phones

• 88% say yes to at least one of the above

These are very interesting statistics and the report shows that mobile users and more engaged with their news brands and appreciate news more when it is highly interactive.

This is great news and something newspaper publishers around the world should be paying attention to. Not only does it prove that consumers want to read their news through native mobile applications, but it also proves that they are willing to pay for this privilege.

A big round of applause go to the entire Guardian Digital Team for their pioneering work in the mobile media ecosystem. Congrats!

Download the app here

By not optimizing the page for mobile devices there was really no reason for users to download their application. In addition none of the advertising was optimized for the iPhone, so CTR’s were probably very close to 0. That’s all in the past now and as of last week they have announced plans to release a proper news application in April as well as a sports application that will also cover the upcoming World Cup of Soccer (along with live radio feeds of the games).

This seems like a pretty obvious move for a news organization these days, no? Well apparently not! The BBC is a government run organization and although it is quite progressive and recently has been run very much like a business, it is still held in check by the BBC Trust. In the past two months we have seen the launch and re-launch of a number of major national British newspaper apps – i.e. The Telegraph and The Guardian. These apps are both best of breed mobile news readers and have claimed the top spots in the UK iTunes News category. These publishers, as well as a number of other publishers from the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA – a very powerful association made up of all the national newspapers in the UK) are yelling foul saying that the BBC’s new app strategy will distort the market.

This is a very interesting case of private and public news organizations fighting it out in a very new arena. We will clearly be following what happens as the NPA is currently in the process of  lobbying the BBC Trust and the British Department of Culture, Media and Sport to effectively have the applications banned. David Newell, the NPA’s director, summarized his organization’s argument in a terse and biting statement:

“Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers. At a time when the BBC is facing unprecedented levels of criticism over its expansion, and when the wider industry is investing in new models, it is extremely disappointing that the Corporation plans to launch services that would throw into serious doubt the commercial sector’s ability to make a return on its investment, and therefore its ability to support quality journalism.”

What is your take on this? Will the entrance of a real BBC app strategy hurt the current publishers? Will it distort the market or will it lead to greater competition and therefore increased innovation in the news app space? I know here in Canada the CBC (a Crown Corporation) has been aggressively working in the app space. They have built out an internal mobile team and are planning to push out a number of apps over 2010. Their CBC Radio application has held the #1 spot in the Canadian iTunes News category for some time now. If the CBC can do this, why can’t the BBC? We would love to hear from you. Should the BBC be allowed to release the application or not and if not, why? Let us know!

Update (2/26/2010):

An interesting piece popped up on the Times website today, however I am not sure whether this will have an effect on the future of the BBC’s iPhone apps. The piece talks about the end to an era of expansion for the BBC. The piece explains that the BBC will be cutting down most of its radio, TV and internet operations to allow for a level playing field with their corporate competitors. There are two quotes that really stand out to me here:

“Mark Thompson, the Director-General, will admit that the corporation, which is funded by the £3.6 billion annual licence fee, has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate.”

and

“It will be seen as an attempt to show a potential Tory government that the BBC understands the effect the deep advertising recession has had on commercial rivals and that it does not need outside intervention to get its house in order.”

It appears that the BBC is going to be moving from their expansionary strategy and focus on quality over quantity. As I stated I am not sure whether this will have an effect on their app strategy, but it sounds like it may. The article can be found here and is definitely worth reading.

Maybe the most interesting of all the developments over the weekend was an announcement by 24 of the major mobile carriers – i.e. AT&T, Verizon, etc, to launch an open unified application platform. Application stores are a very important channel in the mobile world as we are increasingly seeing with Apples iTunes. This move by the carriers seems to put them toe to toe against Apple, but how will they compete?

Apple is already way ahead of the game and only has to deal with one or two devices. A unified app platform would be highly fragmented especially as the major players – i.e. RIM and Google have not stated that they are participating. Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering has already shared his skepticism, saying, “There is always a dream that you could write [a program] once and [have it] run anywhere and history has proven that that dream has not been fully realised and I am sceptical that it ever will be“. A Techcrunch article breaks down the real issues with this unified platform by outlining the following problems :

1.) Fragmentation – With so many devices to support you will always have to wait for your manufacturer to update the most recent version of the store. Even if they can solve this issue, developers will have to deal with so many different screen sizes and resolutions. This is already an issue for developers with Blackberry’s and Android phones, however the issue will get worse with a unified platform like this.

2.) Functionality – Overall we have seen that unified platforms like these work by trading off some of the functionality that the phones are capable of. This means that these apps will be fine for very basic tasks, but we already have a unified language for simple apps; HTML5.

I wont pass my final judgement until I see who decides to join the alliance. These are still early days for this group, however they will need more manufacturers than, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson in order to make this work and I doubt Google or RIM will join in given their focus on app distribution. I agree that it is scary to see a big player like Apple dominating the app distribution space and someone needs to get it ‘right’ for the other phones, but I do not think this unified approach will work.

On the note of interoperability, it is also prudent to note that Adobe has announced that it is bringing its Air platform to a number of mobile devices. If this is the case, Flash developers everywhere will be able to code applications in one unified language for all mobile phones. Once again only time will tell, but from an interoperability standpoint I would put my money on Adobe’s Air platform over this new Carrier Consortium.

What are your thoughts?

In January Mobile Posse launched an ad campaign with Ford Motors, promoting the new Ford Taurus. The campaign displayed information about the new car on user’s idle screens and when they clicked on the advertisement they were taken to Ford’s mobile website which let them locate their closest dealer. This campaign saw a staggering 20% CTR. This means that 20% of people who saw this ad actually clicked on it and interacted with Ford’s mobile website. Typical web based ad campaigns see an average CTR of just under 1%, so a 20% campaign is not something to ignore. It is important to note that the numbers are slightly skewed because all of these users had initially opted in to see advertising on their phones, however these stats suggest that the power of mobile advertising is very real.

In an earlier post (here) we spoke about the future of mobile advertising and suggested where Apple and Spreed want to take the industry. If we can match motivated users with the type of actionable advertising capabilities that Spreed is building into our platform, it is not insane to think that by the end of 2010 we will see CTRs going well above this 20% benchmark. This is very exciting news and I would like to congratulate Mobile Posse on what appears to be a fantastic service. I know that we will be keeping an eye on them.

So the iPad was just officially announced by Steve Jobs and overall sentiment online has been mixed. I am going to reserve my judgement until I have actually placed my eyes and hands on the device myself. However, I do want to point out that this device or one similar to it is going to completely revolutionize the PC industry.

A few posts back I talked about the impending mobile OS wars and the future of the PC industry. The launch of the iPad proves that this movement is very real and that we are going to see more of these in the near future.

What does this all mean for newspapers and media companies? Well, we saw two media demo’s today. The first was from MLB who always do a spectacular job with their interactive technology innovations. If anyone is on the cusp of making ipTV attractive for the masses it is the MLB. more importantly though was the demo from the New York Times.

Here at Spreed we are very focused on the newspaper industry and as such the iPad is a very interesting platform  for us. The NYTimes demo showed off a great looking app that really took advantage of the entire form factor to replicate and enhance the traditional newspaper experience. I love how they have integrated videos and galleries seamlessly into articles and how users can get a snapshot of every article in todays newspaper through one view.

In addition this is a much smarter platform for newspapers and magazine publishers in comparison to the Kindle. For a good year now I have been saying that the Kindle is okay, but it doesn’t satisfy the needs of readers and advertisers. The Kindle is black and white and not interactive from a media stand point. The iPad completely satisfies these holes left by the Kindle. It can do everything a Kindle can, but displays everything in color and lets people really interact with the content (a must for online advertisers these days).

Mobile platforms are exciting and there is loads of potential for innovation. Spreed is definitely going to be playing around with the iPad and helping our clients embrace this new platform. However, we suggest everyone be cautious and make sure that they understand each platform before they move onto the next one. Make sure you can sell at least some of your existing mobile inventory on your iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps before you start sinking big money into an iTab edition of your paper.

I look forward to getting my iTab and sharing my first hand findings with  you all. Please feel free to call or email me with any questions about this new platform and what it means for your organization.

This months stats pointed out two very interesting items. Firstly, they noted that iPod touch numbers doubled after Christmas morning. This is to be expected (it also happened last year), but what are the implications? Publishers should understand that when building an application they must keep in mind the regularly offline iPod touch users. Spreed takes this into consideration when developing apps with our offline reading mode feature. All content is downloaded into the device when it has connectivity and reports usage back to the server when it reaches its next connection point. This means that iPod touch users (an increasingly growing market) can still use the app, download the content when in their Wi-fi network and read it on the go.

The second notable stat from this months report is that the iPhone accounted for 54% of all smartphone requests. Although it is important to take into consideration a multiple platform advertising strategy, it is clear that the iPhone is currently the best platform for displaying and seeing a return on your investment.

December 2009 Mobile Metrics Report

Today we released the December edition of our Mobile Metrics report, our monthly look at the data flowing through our network.  This month we look at several key metrics including manufacturer share, operating system share, top devices, and top smartphones for each region in our network.  At a glance, the data shows large regional differences in the devices that are accessing the mobile web.

With Windows Mobile, we want to permit a range of hardware innovation, and yet, still have a pretty good experience end-to-end, with good applications, and we want the ability for software developers to target both a very high-end and a lower range or mid-range phone. And the ability to scale up and down, to work with multiple hardware vendors, to get a range of competition and innovation and price competition amongst the hardware guys is a big asset. It is certainly what our strategy is.

However, a recent article in All Things Digital has eluded to new evidence that may suggest that Microsoft is prepping to launch the Zune phone very shortly, possibly within the next two months.

Microsoft to Launch Zune Phone in 2 Months?

It’s intriguing to see that talk of Microsoft’s (MSFT)long-rumored ‘Pink’ phone project has started up again. In a note to clients today, Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert claims that Redmond is gearing up to launch a phone based on WindowsMobile7.

“Our recent industry checks indicate Microsoft will be debuting its own phone sometime in the next two months,” Egbert writes. “We expect the new phone to debut soon, at either the Feb 15-18 Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona Spain, or possibly at CTIA in Las Vegas one month later.”

Google Android is Google’s new mobile Operation System (OS). It’s an open source project that allows any cell phone manufacturer (no matter how big or small) to install a top of the line smart phone OS with a full ecosystem and community of developers supporting it. In many ways it is like Windows; just much more open. Just like Windows, Google Chrome can be installed on any mobile phone, making it a very attractive solution for hardware manufacturers. There is no doubt in my mind that like Windows did in the PC marketing, Android will do in the mobile market (that doesn’t mean it’s the best), but Apple will always have its loyal following. So how does this pose a threat to Microsoft’s main OS business?

I am going to make a bold prediction here that may or may not come true. I believe we are just beginning to see the first adoption wave of truly mobile computers. Apple is coming out with a Tablet or Slate as they call it at some point in 2010 (maybe on January 27th). In the mean time Google has proven already in 2009 that it can install its Android software on netbooks, tablets, and other portable PC’s etc. I believe that a good portion of the PC market is going to radically shift to a mobile platform as these devices go from being feature rich phones and lightweight PC’s to devices rivalling the power of your regular laptop and desktop PC. Then what is Microsoft going to do? Their mobile OS has poor adoption rates and the User Experience both on their core mobile OS and in the app store is far below subpar.

If the PC industry makes a radical shift over the next 5-10 years into a highly mobile platform and if Google does what it is currently doing and continues to make it easy for mobile hardware manufacturers to install its OS, we are going to see a very different OS landscape and Microsoft won’t be the leaders this time.

If any of you have used Admob before you will know that the majority of the ads that are served up on their network are pretty much replicas of traditional online banner ads and in most cases not well targeted and un-actionable. Mr. Jobs see’s this hole and knows the true powers of both mobile and more specifically the iPhone. Mobile advertising has the potential to be much more valuable than web based advertising both to end-users and brands. Instead of simply serving up two-dimensional banner ads that click to a mobile website, Jobs see’s the potential of utilizing the vast functionality of these smart phones to engage end-users.

Take this scenario for example. A user is checking their Yahoo Fantasy Sports app on the iPhone during Football Sunday. The phone knows which app is being used when and knows to serve up a Domino’s Pizza ad. The ad shows the latest deals from Domino’s and then lets the end-user make a call directly from the ad. The user is also then able to download a coupon from the ad directly into their phone’s photo gallery so that when the delivery boy arrives at the door they can redeem their discount. In cases like these the advertisement is adding loads of value to the end user and because they are so engaged the brand (Domino’s in this case) is happy.

Spreed believes in this methodology and is actively building these types of ads for our publishers’ advertising partners. In addition our ad platform has advanced targeting capabilities. Because we analyze every action that goes on within our apps we can begin profiling users and serving them the right ads at the right time.

These are very early days for the mobile advertising industry, however we believe, just like Steve Jobs, that this industry needs to go a lot further than simply pushing a random banner ad to an unknown end user.

Just a little personal background: I am a young guy and have been a techie my entire life; pretty much ever since I can remember, so going to the “tech mecca” was big for me. San Fran didn’t let me down. It was everything I thought it would be and more. 

During the Summit we had the chance to attend seminars ranging in topics life environmental sustainability, econonmic responsibility, emerging technologies and most importantly, to us, the mobile revolution.

People have been talking about mobile for a long time and we have always known it was going to be big. It’s been touted as THE platform. A way for advertisers to connect with users in a far more intelligent way. The problem was that the technology and interest of the people just wasn’t there.

The Web 2.0 Summit presenters and attendees, however, seemed to suggest that the technology (i.e. 3G, the iPhone, the Bold) is now where it needs to be and that the market is ready to adopt it. 3G networks are rolling out all over North America and the iPhone and Bold is becoming a common staple of ever day society. We realized it was time to commit to the mobile revolution.

I had the opportunity to chat with mobile expert, Raven Zachary, who made me realize the opportunity in providing mobile services to businesses.

As a team we decided it was time to truly define our business model and It is no surprise, given the excitement at the conference, that we chose to focus our model on mobile – and the iPhone in particular. 

We left San Fran more inspired than ever.

As of today Spreed will be focusing on providing fully branded mobile applications for content providers. We will use our expertise in mobile reading technology to provide publishers with the best of breed mobile solutions.

But we wont just stop at reading technologies. We want to replicate the newspaper experience on a mobile device. We want to eliminate the need for paper based news. More importantly, we want to find ways for newspapers and other content providers to engage their readers and build revenue they never thought possible. 

That being said we will unfortunately have less time to focus on projects like Spreed:News. We appreciate all the feedback we’ve received so far and will continue to fund our R&D lab and develop new reading technologies. We apologize in advance if we do not respond to your feedback as fast as we have in the past.But at this current time, our prime focus will be on pushing content to mobile devices with a clear eye to helping the publishers monetize that content. Such is the reality of 2009 – and from a technology point of view, the timing couldn’t be better. improve the system. 

This is a very exciting time for Spreed and we appreciate all the support we’ve received and continue to receive. I look forward to connecting with everyone in the near future. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about Spreed’s model or Spreed:News. I am always available via twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/spreed or less frequently via our facebook fan page @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spreed/51827975076

I look forward to hearing from you all

Best regards

Dave Coleman (@DaveColeman)

Amazon Growth Slows a Bit; No New Kindle in 2008: Publishers Weekly

CFO Tom Szkutak said that while sales of the Kindle have exceeded expectations, it does not plan to release a new version of the e-reader until 2009 “at the earliest.” He noted that Amazon has ramped up manufacturing capacity for Kindle, and the device is in stock. When the Kindle was introduced last November, the readers quickly went out of stock. Amazon said the e-book reader now accounts for more than 10% of unit sales for books that are available both in digital and print formats. Bezos said purchase of e-books is “additive” to sales of print books with Kindle e-book buyers tending to buy as many print books in addition to e-books.

Oprah Comes Out For Kindle: The Guardian

Today in Chicago, and on TV screens across the USA, Oprah Winfrey is going to recommend her new “favorite gadget,” which is Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader. A brief video has appeared on Amazon’s website to plug the show — as spotted by Chris Nuttall at the Financial Times — which will also feature a guest appearance by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Kindle in the University: Brave New World Blog

Yale, Oxford and the University of California have all adopted Kindle programs, and now Princeton University Press will begin publishing Kindle-edition textbooks, launching, Robert Shiller’s new economics book “The Subprime Solution” on the device two weeks before the hard copy. Princeton plans to roll out hundreds of books through the Kindle’s online store. The questions over over the commercial ‘revenue sharing’ arrangements are between the parties and whether , as some may say, Amazon is buying trade. 

The problem with Bauerlein and so many like him is that he’s good at identifying a problem and poor at figuring out the solution.  With all due respect to Bauerlein, Nicholas Carr and the growing cadre of people (all much smarter and better educated than me) that claim that the greatest communication platform the world has ever seen is responsible for the dumbing-down of its users (and yes, I know that “dumbing” isn’t a word), I humbly suggest they jump off the bandwagon and look for a more practical solution.  Why?  Because people are not going to stop consuming copious quantities of written information via the internet any time soon. And because I have evidence that they’re wrong.

At Spreed Inc. we continue to believe in the power of the computer.  Rather than taking a step backward as the Luddite literati suggest, we understand that we’ve only just touched the surface, potential-wise, of computing and the internet.  There are issues to be sure. We continue to adhere to a medieval artifact when presenting written text on electronic devises, a mistake that Spreed has wagered would eventually be corrected.  But, in a relatively short period of time we’ve proven that speed and comprehension can be significantly improved (and improved over traditional paper-based, hard-copy reading) when delivering text to the user in the right format. Six young guys in an office over a one-year period accomplished this.  Imagine what some greater minds than us could accomplish here!

Other problems identified by Bauerlein may be worth discussion.  Is the internet leading to a bastardization of the English language and does it matter?  But he doesn’t address this and instead focuses on the absurd claim that the computer “conspires against certain intellectual habits requisite to liberal-arts learning”. Really? Nothing in here about how the internet allows for greater access to diverse ideas and more efficient and effective research?

There’s so much that is wrong with Bauerlein’s article, I’m not exactly sure what to criticize.  For someone blasting the academic capabilities of today’s youth, he sure takes some liberties with logic and fact.  I suggest he re-read Nielsen’s studies and look at the sorts of “reading” Nielsen was referring to (search pages, websites, etc. – not academic prose).  Of course they scan this material!  Furthermore, somehow “screen reading” (which he also cleverly changes to “fast scanning” and “screen scanning”) is responsible for 41% of professors labeling students “not well prepared”? How so? And what of the 48% labeled “somewhat well prepared”? Can we assume them all to be hard-copy reading Amish-folk who managed to make it to university having avoided the computer?  Finally, an academic of Bauerlein’s quality should know better than to cite 10 year old research on web reading when advances in content and the reading devices (flat panel monitors, iPhones, etc.) have rendered that research out of date.  I could go on.

Bauerlein is a Luddite with an apparent agenda to shock and sell books.  The title of his latest book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30) says it all.  Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.  Historically, every generation hears these fear-mongering insults from previous generations, and I think history shows that each generation has proven to be better and more innovative than the last. Fortunately, access to quality content on the internet will improve and so will the ways we digest that information.  I’m doing my part to further that end and won’t allow Baurlein or Carr to stand in the way.
 

Don’t be surprised if all the new readers will sport E-Ink technologies. It is the only way of building a thin, durable device that has extended battery life. It’s rumoured that Amazon’s Kindle will still carry the best price point ($360) by a longshot. Some of the new features we are looking to play with are larger screen sizes and interactive touch screens.

The question still remains, do we want to carry a second or third device? Are these dedicated e-readers that much of an improvement to warrant their purchase? I’ve just downloaded an e-book to my iPhone.  Who knew that I was carrying an an e-reader in my pocket all along?

For those interested in a beta trial of reading longer documents (perhaps an e-book) email me suhail@spreedinc.com.