Amazon's Kindle

A friend of mine working at Amazon sent me a note about the new Amazon Kindle. Here are my initial thoughts after reading about it and watching the videos.

From atoms to bits: Amazon was initially an online book-store. Amazon became the online store to get atoms of any kind (they built a platform so anyone could sell stuff using their platform). They started offering downloadable images of books a few years ago. They recently started offering MP3 (bits), Now electronic books with a custom reader. Investments in S3 technology and these developments clearly show that Amazon is going into the business of delivering bits and not just atoms.

Bits are more profitable:This is just the beginning. Delivering bits is big business. There are economies of scale to benefit from. Amazon could start offering Videos (TV, movies, Youtube, surveillance), audio (Voicemail, mp3s, recorded conference calls), software (apps, updates, upgrades)... In general, I like the trend of getting into this business. The margin in bit delivery is higher than atom delivery.

Also, I see a clear move towards global and off-line access. The choice of using a cell network instead of Wi-Fi reflects this intent.

Price: This device itself seems too expensive ($400). I buy about $200 worth of books a year, Factoring in the savings in the new e-books, I think I am looking at a 3-4 year break-even period. This price has to fall. There are numerous comments by reviewers in Amazon.com that are demanding this. I hope they are not trying to pull an Apple and use high initial price to get interest free capital. One of these days, I hope device makers start rewarding early-buyers with a lower price.

Keyboard: It would have been much nicer to not have the keyboard and special buttons (Search, Network off, Next Page, Previous Page, and all the letters...). An on-screen keyboard (like TabletPC), A pen/touch sensitive screen would have made this look a lot nicer. It would also allow me to annotate pages. The keys are all at an angle (is this for ergonomic reasons?) At the very least, the keyboard should have been the pop-out kind.

Display: I see too little text in each screen. Most screen shots, show just one image and 4 lines of text. This makes it look impractical. All the pages are also double spaced. Wonder why?

Color: The device looks bland and does only grey-scale. Both the outside and inside need color. All portable devices are now coming in several colors. Zune, Ipod, even laptops.

Green? Is this "green"er than paper books. I would assume so but unfortunately that's not highlighted as a selling point. I wish they are cutting paper muda.

Reviews:The reviewers on the videos posted are Mr. Bezos and some authors. I would have rather like to see reviews from regular people. It seemed too artificial to me. In some cases, it seemed liked the reviewer were reading scripted stuff.

Amazon should not make hardware:Amazon should have left the making of the device to other people whose core competency it is to make nice looking hardware (like Apple or Microsoft). They could opened it up to 3rd party vendors who could have competed to make better devices.

Business Model: I like the new business model of factoring in the data transfer charges into the books. The model does break when it comes to free content like blogs. Amazon chanrges $1 per blog - but I could assimilate several blogs in one and abuse the system? The 10c per doc that is emailed seems to be ok. I could see this being extended to rent-a-book easily ($1 for 1 week of book-rental with a $1 late-fee per week).

Competition: In terms of competition, I see this as an immediate threat to Sony (they have an ebook thing (that's cheaper)). Apple's Itunes is already under attack but their cool device is keeping them alive. Apple could also fight back by making the iPhone-like device do this (but that would be so not Applesque). M$ can also get back with cheaper tablet PCs. Akamai and other edge-caching networks are easy targets. Netflix better be on the lookout (Video is next). This could also spill into cable/phone providers. None of these stocks moved too much today. Fedex and other atom movers could be affected in a decade or so if thing catches on.

Bottom line: Device - bad, Price for device - bad, getting into the bits business seriously - good. Business model - ok. Marketing/PR - bad (too scripted, bad reviews, lousy name "Kindle")

Don't use Drive-thru's

McDonald's, Taco Bell, Starbucks and other junk-food havens all have drive-thru's. Everytime I pass by these establishments, I notice that there is often a long line of cars. Since, the line moves slowly, no one ever turns their car off. It takes 5 to 10 minutes to make the journey of a 100 feet. This is a collosal waste of fuel! (Muda)

On average, I would guess that it takes about 2 minutes to serve one customer. If there are 4 cars lined up, you are better off parking and taking your business inside. You get some human contact and are likely to get your order taken care of in lesser time (say 5 minutes) than waiting for the 8 minutes with your car running. You could burn a few calories, save fuel and time!

I can also bet that you can fix a healthier (and more economical) meal/snack for yourself than Starbucks can. Take it as a challenge and avoid these places or at least their drive-thru's for a week. It will feel better. Oh! you also helped the world by saving energy!

http://maps.live.com has this cool new feature called "1-click directions". I just love it. Instead of entering a "from address" - you just mention which direction you are coming from. Most people know how to get from their home/work to the freeway. The directions kinda start at, where you need to exit from the freeway. I love it! Great elimination of muda in directions! Good job Microsoft!

I wish they made the steps in the directions clickable. Once, I click on the line of direction, I would love to see the map for that one line. I can wait a couple of months. ;-)

My vs Your

While designing websites, you will be faced with this problem. Do you call things as "My preferences", "Your preferences" or just "Preferences". Substitute the word "preferences" with "Account", "Inbox", "Yahoo!/MSN".

Amazon uses "Your Account", "Your cart". It also uses "Add to Wish List", "Track Packages"
MSN uses "My MSN", "My Calendar", a few your and some neutral. The newer Hotmail and Live strives to be neutral.
Yahoo! uses My and neutral.
Google prefers neutral.
Southwest predominantly uses "your".

I was wondering if there is a guideline on this. I searched around and could not find any. So, let me make a case and you tell me if you buy it.

FIRST RULE: Be consistent (applicable mostly to small sites)
A site that uses all 3 forms thoughtlessly, looks unprofessional

SECOND RULE: If your site can't be customized/personalized - use neutral
This is slightly risky. Eventually, if your site grows in popularity, you might have to add customizable/personalizable parts.

THIRD RULE: If your site site automatically adjusts itself to the users - stay on neutral
By using past history, if you alter the site, then stay neutral.

FOURTH RULE: If your site allows users to change settings to suit themselves, then call those parts as "My"
If users can choose a different color for the skin of the site and they expect that you will remember this the next time, they return, it's a good choice to call these as "My ..."

FIFTH RULE: If you are exchanging money then use "your" for the things the user got in exchange for their money.
If I pay $$$ for an airline ticket, I expect that the site reliquish ownership of the ticket and start attributing the ticket to me. "Print your itinerary", "Change your reservation"...

Try these rules in your specific situations and let me know if these seem to make sense?

Muda

My father introduced me to this concept called Muda. It is a Japanese term that means "activities that are wasteful or activities that are unproductive". It is one of several great concepts used by Toyota. Essentially, steps in a process are put into 2 buckets: productive or wasteful. There are various types of wastes. Attempts are made to eliminate the waste. See Wikipedia Article & Article in DMReview Magazine (Sep 2005)

I can think of lots of ways I can change my life to get rid of Muda in my daily life. I drove to the gas station today during the lunch hour, I could have just filled up on the way home. I consciously used the concept today - I used this as the theme for the day in our ToastMaster's meeting. I printed the agenda and voting slip using 1/4th the paper we typically use. It seems that Muda is just one of several wastages. I definitely plan to learn more and implement it in my life.

Join me in eliminating Muda!