Google Pimps Play eBooks

Which is a waste of marketing dollars. What are they really selling here? eBooks or a tablet? Why no mention of the Google Play Store? Why no link to just the damn eBooks?

The Fewest Words Are The Most Effective

I just saw this ad on TV moments ago.

BAM!

The least amount of words to deliver a message like a guided missile.

Really, did you think those other whips were made from oil?

I didn’t.

The WTF TOS Of Bookish

The Savior of the Dying Traditional Book Industry launched today.

It’s called Bookish.

It was in private beta for the longest time.

Probably because they had so many damned insane lawyers vetting the Terms Of Service (or Terms Of Use, as they call it).

Have a gander and join in the WTF merriment with some excerpts that are probably against the TOU itself. (Like I give a fuck. I have accounts at Amazon, Kobo, and Sony.)

The Rise Of Pre-Pay

Verizon introduced a new pre-pay phone plan today: Smartphone Options for the Budget-Minded

Seventy dollars a month is hilariously overpriced and the three available phones suck too.

Although I’m glad to see the cellcos finally acknowledging the financial constraints most people are under, this is nothing more than throwing stale crumbs at people. At some point, either Sprint or T-Mobile will get truly desperate and revolutionary and drop all subscription plans, go all pre-pay, and demand phone makers like Samsung (and even Apple) drop the price of their hardware so it properly falls into line. The era of the overpriced seven-hundred-dollar smartphone will also then come to an end. And good bloody riddance to it!

Additional:

Walmart and Straight Talk to offer prepaid iPhone 4 and 5 starting January 11th

Previously here:

The Photo Foretelling Apple’s Doom

Three Things For Today

Be insanely valuable

Think yourself as a customer. Would you buy your own product? Do you think that your product is the best product out there? If you answered ‘no’, stop right now and think what you are really doing. Stop wasting your time, but more importantly stop wasting your customers time.

Archos needs to heed that advice.

Facebook Acknowledges The Real World Others Haven’t

Introducing the Facebook Card, a New Type of Gift Card

Beginning today, people can give their friends gifts to Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target all on one reusable gift card from Facebook.

Gift Cards are a special pet of mine. I’ve written about them before:

The Gift Card Advantage
Google Play Wakes Up To In-Store Gift Cards
Google Play Gift Cards: No Credit Card Required

The real world is that we are bankrupt. Gift Cards acknowledge that fact. They let people who have had their plastic revoked — or who have cut up their plastic to kill their debt slavery — still have access to buying on the Net.

This new Facebook Card goes one further, reaching out the non-Net real world.

This is a huge paradigm shift.

How long before they add partners like supermarkets and drug stores? So Facebook friends can help out other Facebook friends who might need help getting groceries or paying for a prescription? (Note: Target already deals in pharmacy scrips!)

If you don’t see how huge this is, you’re just not paying attention.

This is epic huge.

A Change The Apple App Store Needs ASAP

Update: Someone on Twitter objected to this post. He missed the point. People who don’t have iPads would do this search, which is the entire point. For the longest time, Android apps could be searched for only on an Android phone or tablet. Google got smart and allowed web access, all of Google Play is now on the Net. You can also search for iOS apps and books via the Net now too. This post is valid (why else does iTunes still allow search?) and your shortsighted objection is why you fail — and also why the App Store is a mess.

Today I decided to play a little game.

It’s called Let’s Pretend I Finally Decided To Buy An iPad.

So I went to the App Store to look up one of the functions I need to carry out on any tablet: Photo Editing.

Will Amazon “AutoRip” Print Books Too?

I know the meme is to answer every headline that ends in a question mark with the word, No. So shut up.

Amazon’s “AutoRip” Service Goes Live, Giving Customers Free MP3s For CDs Purchased On Amazon As Far Back As 1998 (Hands On)

Amazon is today introducing a new service called Amazon AutoRip, which automatically gives customers free MP3 versions of any CDs they’ve purchased from Amazon since the launch of its Music Store back in 1998.

If Amazon was able to get the music industry to agree to that — and they are no pushovers — how soon will it happen with DVDs/Blu-Ray Discs? (Hello, Ultraviolet!)

And then printed books?

For all of you print fetishists who have long brayed about bundling an eBook with a printed book, here’s a solution that finally makes some damn sense.

And if that happened, my prior post would seem more plausible as the next step too: How Amazon Could Switch Over ePub Book Buyers

Music 104 Years Ago

Click = big

From Success magazine, January 1908.

And What About Your Free Kindle Book?

Using Statistics to Plan New Editorial

In the U.S., it is estimated, of the books printed that do get sold to individuals, 95 percent are never read.

You’ve given away a thousand copies of your Kindle book for free.

So what?

How many were actually read?

Previously here:

What Are Kindle Sample Conversion Rates?