Amazon Kindle Endorsed By Oprah

Oprah Winfrey enthused about the Amazon Kindle on her show today — it's her "new favorite thing" — and had Jeff Bezos on to announce a $50-off offer good till Nov. 1. A plug on Oprah is ordinarily a sign that a product has crossed over into the mainstream. But her show's audience has been slipping lately, and it's unclear how many cash-strapped citizens will be willing to part with $309 (after the special offer) for a new techno-gadget, for which they then have to shell out more money for DRM-encrusted content.

Comments

"I have no stake in the Kindle," she said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit of a disingenuous statement to make when you have a book club.

How do they do it?

[Yiliar]

How does Amazon get their music distribution so right (DRM free, good tools), and their ebook distribution so wrong (DRM laden, attempts to lock ebook sales to kindle)?

One can only scratch their heads!

I will continue to use my N810 for ebook reading, and BAEN BOOKS and others for ebooks with no DRM at reasonable prices.

Re:How do they do it?

[tlhIngan]

How does Amazon get their music distribution so right (DRM free, good tools), and their ebook distribution so wrong (DRM laden, attempts to lock ebook sales to kindle)?
One can only scratch their heads!

I will continue to use my N810 for ebook reading, and BAEN BOOKS and others for ebooks with no DRM at reasonable prices.

Easy, actually.

Amazon has to sell books. Publishers won't give them books to sell on Kindle unless it's got DRM.

Let's translate this to the Amazon MP3 store... Amazon goes to labels asking for music, but mentioning it's DRM free. Labels thing it over, realizing the following:
1) #1 portable music player is an iPod
2) iTunes Store provides DRM'd music for an iPod
3) Windows Media DRM does not work on an iPod
4) Other music stores are limited to the population who doesn't have an iPod
5) Apple holds all the keys to the iTunes Store.
6) Apple holds the key to selling DRM'd music for the #1 portable player.
7) Apple is near the top in music sellers
8) Apple demands far too much - music at 99 cents, rather than "flexible pricing", other contract terms. (Apple insists on one contract for all labels)
9) Lack of competition for music sales on iPods means labels either go without selling music on the #1 player, or agree to Apple's draconian contract terms.

Thus, their only options is to sell Windows Media DRM on the remaining market, or see that Amazon potentially has the size and power to break the grasp that Apple has on music sales for iPods. No other company is large enough nor powerful enough to do this, except Amazon.

So labels acquiesce to Amazon's DRM free scheme, hoping people will flock from iTunes to Amazon to buy their music. Once this happens, the labels can dictate their terms to Amazon and Apple, not Apple dictating their terms to the labels. If one doesn't want to play ball, sell on the other store (e.g., if Jobs insists on not having flexible pricing, well, walk away, and sell to Amazon since it also works on iPods). Let the stores battle it out in attracting labels.

The iTunes store has too much power over the labels, and the labels hate when they don't have control. Amazon is the only company large enough to take on Apple, and the only way to do that is get music onto iPods via DRM-free MP3s. It's one of the reasons why the iTunes Store experiment started with "limited Mac market" as a feature!

There's no equivalent in the book market where the publishers are being squeezed by a book seller, so publishers get to dictate terms.

The only way the music market can continue to be as good as it is now is if both Apple and Amazon end up powerful enough to force the labels. Else we'll start to see DRM'd music in the Amazon store, and whatever else the labels want (demand-based pricing, etc) on both stores.

Tagged: So what?

[Starteck81]

To those who tagged this "so what?" I would like to pose a question in response. Have you seen what happens to products that get endorsed by Oprah?!?!

They become over night best sellers, most of the time. She has a cult like following that will buy up most anything she recommends. This is why it's interesting. We will now see if something that has failed to take off for quite a number of years will now do so, just because a pop icon gave it the thumbs up.

Re:Tagged: So what?

[fiannaFailMan]

To those who tagged this "so what?" I would like to pose a question in response. Have you seen what happens to products that get endorsed by Oprah?!?!

It's things like this that make me wonder how the tagging system works. I see some tags that would get an Overrated mod if they'd been submitted as a post.

I want to know if Oprah warned the audience...

[MattW]

Did Oprah warn her faithful viewers that if Amazon ever abandons the kindle or the content, that there's a good chance all their "book collection" will be gone forever?

I still have books I bought 20 years ago. Who could possibly be confident your kindle and all those books would be working 20 years from now when DRM schemes are dropping like flies. Can you imagine what's going to happen when studios stop wanting to produce the "old" DVDs?

Re:I want to know if Oprah warned the audience...

[geekoid]

Since it can be used to read non DRM'es stuff, what's the point?

At least you can back it up offsite. What happens to your books if your house burns down?

Gee, it's like everything has a disadvantage of some kind~

Kindle = Cool?

[DesScorp]

I'm as much of a gadget freak as anyone, but I'm old school about books. I like the tactile pleasure of actually having pages in my hand. I spend enough damned time on electronic screens during the day. I want to relax when I read a book. I couldn't stand to read anything but short texts on an electronic device. Give me a musty old library or a book store any day.