- $259 Kindle 2 – My Kindle 2 Review based on 6 months of use.
- Kindle DX - Kindle DX Review including videos and pictures.
Filed under: reviews | Tagged: kindle 2, kindle dx | 11 Comments »
Filed under: reviews | Tagged: kindle 2, kindle dx | 11 Comments »
Some cheap books, deals and samples from the Kindle Store -
And we have our Kindle Exclusive – Special Kindle Edition of The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. It’s $7.99. Rated 4.5 stars by 342 people.
It seems like a great book so bought it – It’s about Listening to your own Intuition, looking for Survival Signals, and protecting yourself from Violence.
Some more good cheap books -
February is slow for free kindle books
There have been a lot of free religious themed books. However,
It seems everyone is waiting – for what?
Filed under: free books | Tagged: kindle deals | Leave a Comment »
A recurring pattern in eReader vs Multi-purpose device reviews is the choice of devices and contexts that support the reviewer’s beliefs and what he/she wants to be true.
If a reviewer thinks the Kindle is better than the iPhone – Her/His comparison is lopsided right from the start. Plus this bias is invisible to the reviewer.
What exactly are we talking about?
A lot of the times it’s not people being unethical – they literally don’t realize their comparison is lopsided.
Quick example of two lopsided comparisons – iPad vs Kindle
How could you set up a comparison to show iPad is better than the Kindle?
Remember that this is mostly done unconsciously –
These are just the obvious things -
If you really want to make comparisons unfair you’d pick a cool person or a hot girl to show off your favorite product.
There are a lot more things that could be done and are done.
These last few tricks are obviously manipulation and much worse than an unconscious bias.
How could you set up a comparison to show the Kindle is better than the iPad?
Again we make unconscious choices that make our desired outcome likelier.
It’s really hard to realize a lot of these factors – to the point that you might think you’re being completely fair while being very biased.
Where does that leave us with comparisons and reviews?
Well, we could clearly show that most reviews and comparisons have conscious and unconscious bias.
It means that we have to approach reviews and comparisons from a completely different perspective.
Making reviews and comparisons very accurate
Step 1: Establish a clear purpose for the review and the device
The most important things to establish are -
The former is essential as it clarifies to the reader that the review meets their needs (or not). It also clears things up in the reviewer’s head.
The latter is important – Are you writing this review to make yourself happy about your choice? Is it to help people? is it to persuade people?
Sometimes establishing the purpose makes the review unnecessary – If you’re just writing something to make yourself happy it might not help anyone.
Step 2: Identify all possible bias and remove it or list it.
Firstly, this is for yourself so that you figure out whether you are just stuck in your beliefs and your assumptions about the world.
Secondly, this is for customers so that they realize what they’re working with.
There are various assumptions we make -
It’s worthwhile to figure these out and make sure they don’t mess up your review or comparison.
Step 3: Look at the comparison from multiple perspectives
This is best illustrated with an example.
For a Kindle vs iPhone review you should look at things from at least these perspectives -
It’s going to ensure you don’t miss the really big things. You are still going to miss little things like the fact that some people LOVE the shape and transparency of the dialog boxes on the iPhone.
Step 4: Provide the reader recommendations for different scenarios OR let them choose
There will usually be 3 or 4 main scenarios. You have to address these in your review.
There will also be a few dozen additional scenarios – To be able to address these you have to list the strengths and weaknesses of both devices and also compare them along several important dimensions.
At some level you don’t know what factors are most important to a reader – so there has to be flexibility in how a reader can interpret a review.
There is no perfectly fair review
The biggest takeaway is that you can’t assume your review is perfect. You put out something that helps people and has as little bias as possible and that’s the best you can do.
When Peyton Manning can throw an interception in the Superbowl it’s foolhardy to assume something you write or review is perfect.
Where does that leave us?
A review or comparison changes from ‘telling users what to do’ or ‘making a decision for users’ to -
In a way reviews and comparisons aren’t about getting things right – because ‘right’ is different for every single person.
They’re about helping readers make a decision that’ll make them happy.
Filed under: reviews | Tagged: truth about reviews | Leave a Comment »
There are times when it seems that the Internet has left me behind. All the new products are seemingly targeting 13-year-old kids with 15 second attention spans.
Everyone wants to create trendy, sexy, cool products that entice and trap young, impressionable minds.
There are just two problems though -
Why are companies ignoring the most valuable customers?
If you draw up a list of the most valuable traits in products and customers you’d get a long list including -
Yet a lot of the products released now seem to be focused on things which are just not that likely to make a ton of money -
And almost all of the new start-ups seem focused on targeting kids and teenagers.
Where are the examples of products built for actual customers?
It’d be really cool to see lots of products that fill actual needs and target actual customers.
All the news is centered around Facebook, Twitter and other things that just aren’t very good businesses. They’re just tools to entice and lock-in users and then figure out how to monetize them later.
The ‘we’re the good guys’ marketing spin has gone out of control – to the point that people forget that these companies just want to feed their users to advertisers.
We should be glad that Apple gets a lot of coverage or we might as well have a rule – ‘No company or business that is profitable can be talked about’.
The most profitable products get little coverage
Here’s a short list of some companies that do things extremely well -
Except for Apple none of these companies get enough coverage.
Instead we talk about Farmville (which is basically a scam) and Twitter and free iPhone Games and Facebook and various product offerings that are free or disastrous financially.
Is there an inherent bias on the Internet against making money?
The Internet seems to be the technological equivalent of crabs in a basket – pulling down any crab trying to improve its place in life.
The minute a company becomes very profitable or very dominant it becomes the enemy.
Why would the Internet be so negative to successful companies?
The only logical answer would be -
On the Internet people want a company that will sacrifice itself for the greater good.
On the Internet people hate any company that is more profitable or dominant than them.
It’s some sort of evolutionary instinct where we don’t want any company to become too successful unless it’s focused on giving us things for free.
Apple used to be the darling and represent all the things that Microsoft should supposedly be.
However, as soon as Apple became wildly successful with its iPod and iPhone and the App Store it became a target.
Underneath it all – Is it just jealousy?
People come up with loads of reasons to hate successful companies -
Are these all rationalizations?
Are Open and Free and Rights just convenient crutches to hide the fact that at some level we are jealous that it was someone else and not us that built a product?
Do we want Microsoft to fail because it’s evil or because it’s making way too much money?
Coming back to Customers and Profit
This collective group negativity manifests in the priorities of new Internet companies - Instead of serving actual customers and focusing on metrics like profitability they seem to be focused either on giving away things for free or fooling customers.
In the past we had -
Now we seem to have one of two starkly different attitudes -
Often it’s the latter gift-wrapped with the former.
When did it become wrong to make money?
I seem to have missed the transition from ‘provide a valuable service to people and make money’ to ‘provide a valuable service to people and starve to death’.
On the Internet everyone is supposed to be doing things for free -
Why are people not entitled to a decent living?
Beyond that, if some people are very good, why are they not entitled to make a lot of money?
It’s really quite sad that the Internet has turned into a giant basket of crabs desperate to not let anyone or anything succeed beyond a certain point.
Filed under: thoughts | Tagged: anti-profit Internet, internet profit, lack thereof | Leave a Comment »
Let’s start with the free and cheap stuff -
Speaking of free a quick reminder that 65,000 19th century fiction books from the British Library’s collection are going to be made available for Kindle owners this spring. The project is funded by Microsoft and comprises a lot of rare 19th century editions.
Nooks will be in stores starting Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Electronista cover the news that B&N will have some amount of Nooks available for purchase in stores starting Wednesday, February 10th -
Barnes & Noble today said that the Nook will at last reach its retail shops.
While it has had demo units in stores since launch in the fall, the bookseller now says it expects most locations to have units directly available to buy on Wednesday the 10th.
That would make it the perfect time for Amazon to announce something – Perhaps a price cut? Perhaps a new product? Perhaps a news conference?
It gives B&N quite an advantage and it’ll be interesting to see whether sales trends change. The Nook has had 2 software upgrades and that may have a big impact too.
Kindle and eReader Snippets
“I haven’t been convinced that it’s good for the author or consumer to delay the release.
My fear is that the consumer who has fully embraced the technology will buy another e-book that is available or lose interest altogether.
What if I train the consumer that the best scenario is to get it free?”
Kindle Apps beginning to get exposure
Filed under: free books | Tagged: free audiobook | 3 Comments »