Here’s why a Kindle 3 release and another Oprah Kindle endorsement are pretty likely this year -
- It’ll be 9 months since the Kindle 2.
- The Kindle 2 was supposedly delayed from an original October/November 2008 scheduled release date.
- Oprah Kindle worked once. And by worked we mean Kindle sales sky-rocketed and the Kindle was sold out for most of the holiday season.
- Supposed great rapport between Jeff Bezos and Oprah.
- An early release of Kindle 3 would be a huge advantage for Amazon over current and upcoming competitors.
- Amazon knows very well that this holiday season might determine who wins the long term battle for the future of publishing.
- Amazon also knows that as Publishers get more options they will try to create a level playing field for eReaders and wrest back control of publishing. The Kindle’s window of opportunity is rapidly closing and it needs to get as much market share as it can in the next 1 to 2 years.
Thoughts – Oprah Kindle 3 endorsement likelihood
There is a lot more Kindle and ereader awareness this year. That’s on the positive side. The negative changes are -
- Users getting overwhelmed by sheer number of product offerings.
- The promise of the Apple eReader.
- Lots of negative attacks by the main stream bloggers and media.
- Sony pushing open formats and free google books and free library ebooks.
Basically, users are overwhelmed by the options and confused by the attacks on the Kindle. There are three ways to counter this -
- Letting users use the Kindle in person. Hence, the recent Amazon note on trying out Kindles for 30 days.
- Endorsements of friends and family who own a Kindle.
- Endorsements of trusted people.
One or more of these factors is enough to overwhelm 10 anti-Kindle articles complaining about DRM and ePub and other things end users don’t really care about.
However, one or more of these factors is needed. The most scalable option for the Kindle would be to get endorsements from people who are trusted, and whose endorsement would hold a lot of weight -
- Perhaps send out free kindles to President Obama’s family. Michelle Obama or one of the Obama girls using a Kindle would instantly double sales.
- Perhaps get an endorsement from a pastor like Joel Osteen.
- Gurus with followings like Anthony Robbins. People pay $10,000 for his ’shallow hal’ conferences - surely $299 for a Kindle is doable.
- Get big name authors and journalists on-board.
- Another natural candidate is Tyra Banks who is also earning a following with her talk show.
- Perhaps Bill and Hillary Clinton.
While these are all good options and options that should be exercised, the trump card is still Oprah.
Except perhaps for President Obama, no one has the pull of Oprah – Why change a winning strategy?
An Oprah Kindle 3 endorsement is very likely - my money’s on November 2009, despite all of Amazon’s protests that there is no Kindle 3 this year.
Filed under: availability, kindle 3 Tagged: | oprah effect kindle, oprah kindle
I have to disagree. Coming out with a new model nine months after Kindle 2 would be a big mistake on Amazon’s part. Consumers would be pretty upset and almost every company waits at least a year between new product cycles.
And too this the question of production capacity and I think Kindle 3 will be slated for spring of next year…
I agree- November makes sense to me. Sony is upping the ante with their new eReaders and other companies are as well. Amazon needs to push out a Kindle 3 prior to the holidays to keep their momentum going.
I would be disappointed if amazon comes out with a Kindle 3 before updating the current line with a firmware update. If amazon could take care of some of the problems through software like the iphone 3 update it would be very cost effective. Having many products to support can be costly.