Amazon has announced the opening of the Kindle Store in Italy and Spain, as well as the first Italian- and Spanish-language Kindles. The French Kindle Store opened in October. The Italian store features over 16,000 book titles, and the Spanish store has 22,000, both including thousands of free classics.
Just as in the French, each of the new stores is opening with the new basic Kindle reader available for 99€. The international stores also support Amazon's new Kindle Direct Publishing service, so independent authors and publishers can make their books available in these new stores.
Amazon's Kindle sales on Black Friday were up 400% over last year, according to the company. The Kindle Fire tablet is now the bestselling item on Amazon.com. Prior to its release, Amazon ordered 5 million Kindle Fires to meet demand.
Amazon also refreshed the e-ink Kindle line this year, introducing a touchscreen version. Amazon is usually cagey about Kindle sales and won't specify numbers or the breakdown across the Kindle family. But 2011 has been the year of the Kindle, and Amazon wants to demonstrate its success.
There is a general thought going around the Internet that by making Android open source, Google has lost control of the platform as companies like Amazon and Facebook use to source code fork to create their own devices. It has been said that Google has lost the keys to Android and it was a mistake to let anyone outside of Google-approved original equipment manufacturers build off the platform.
Has Google really lost control of Android? By forking Android to their needs, have Amazon and Facebook really taken money out of Google's pockets? Probably not. In fact, with the Kindle Fire and rumored Facebook Phone, both Facebook and Amazon may have unwittingly become platform evangelists for the Android platform.
It has been a little more than a week since the Kindle Fire has been available to the general public and fundamental approach that Amazon has taken to the device is beginning to take shape. This is not exactly a question of iPad vs. Kindle Fire nor the notion that the Fire is "a service, and not a product." Amazon's approach to the Android code is addition by subtraction. What has the Fire done to the Android platform and is it ultimately a recipe for success?
As the holiday season approaches, Amazon has opened thousands of temporary positions for workers at its fulfillment centers in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Nevada. These are hourly openings in picking, packing and receiving/shipping across multiple shifts. Eligible applicants must be able to stand and walk for 8-12 hour shifts and lift up to 50 pounds.
"We're looking to hire smart and motivated people across the U.S. to help us deliver a great experience for our customers during the holiday season," says Dave Clark, vice president of Amazon's North American Operations. Each year, Amazon hires thousands of people to manage the variation in customer demand during busy seasons. It also uses these positions as a way to find full-time employees. Amazon says that more than 4,700 temporary workers have been hired full-time over the past year.
There is an epic battle taking place before our eyes, in our pockets and in our wallets. Smarthones have come to dominate consumer behavior and the headlines of media. What is the newest development with the iPhone? What are the newest and hottest Android devices this week? Can Microsoft make a dent in the mobile market? What kind of tricks does Amazon have up its sleeves? Does Facebook have a plan to tap into consumers' wallets through mobile devices?
Make no mistake, the pipeline between users' bank accounts through smart devices is what each one of these companies is looking to tap. Each one of these five major American technology companies is taking a different route to this one goal. Yet, each one of these companies is taking a different route to the same goal. Let's break down the roads that each one of these companies is taking in the quest to win the Mobile Platform Game of Thrones.
The Kindle Fire just hit stores, but rumors from the supply chain indicate that two new models are already in production for next year. DigiTimes says Amazon will launch an 8.9-inch model by the end of Q2 2012 and is also developing a 10.1-inch tablet. Already, 22% of prospective tablet buyers want a Kindle Fire (65% want an iPad). With more choices, Amazon can meet more demand.
Amazon has ordered 5 million units of the current model to meet pre-orders. Will those people have buyers' remorse when they hear about new models? Well, at the $200 price point, at least it won't hurt as much as an iPad. Amazon found the consumer sweet spot with that price, even though they lose $2.70 on each one. In other words, the first shipment of Kindle Fires cost Amazon $13.5 million, and that's if they sell them all. Why would they take that hit and still order two new versions? Because the Kindle Fire is a service, not a product.
One of the more common criticisms lobbed at Apple when it comes to iOS is its restrictive application approval policies. Apps that contain racy content, include features that compete with Apple's own core functionality or that don't adhere to their user experience guidelines are often rejected. To some extent, the criticism is warranted, although Apple has grown more accommodating over time.
Take browsers, for example. When the iPhone App Store first launched, you couldn't dream of getting a Web browser other than Safari onto the device. For similar reasons, there was a long wait to get the official Google Voice app approved by Apple, since it duplicated some of the functionality of the phone. Over time, Apple loosened its restrictions and apps like Google Voice and the Dolphin Web browser are readily available on iOS.
Citigroup's research department reports that Amazon will introduce a smartphone in Q4 2012. This will push Amazon futher into the mobile market. The phone will go for an estimated $150-$170. Sources say it will run Android, but Amazon will still have to pay an "OS royalty" to Microsoft, which "claims that more than half of Android devices are subject to patenting licensing agreements," according to ArsTechnica.
Continuing our series about the Consumer Cloud, today we compare the three leading music cloud services: Apple's iTunes Match (just launched today), Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google Music. With these three highly competitive services, online music fans have never had it so good.
There are two main battles going on in the online music market, each of which is benefiting consumers greatly. One is between the three so-called cloud lockers mentioned above, which are competing to be the online archive for your digital music collection. The second battle is about whether you even need an online archive at all.
