by Aanarav Sareen on October 3, 2011
Amazon has been one of my absolute favorite companies. They made buying books easier. They made e-books popular. And their customer-service is stellar. What company gives you money back when their shipping vendor delays a package for 1 day?
A few years ago, they introduced the Kindle. It was priced high for market penetration. However, with their announcements last week — the Kindle is now a mainstream device. Starting at just $79 and all the way up to $199, e-books will be mainstream. As an author, that is great news. No other digital reader or media playback device can even remotely compete in this market.
Another big thing that Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire is firmly established itself in the media space — music and video.
Amazon was the first major player to offer DRM-free MP3s. Apple — the big behemoth had to follow suit. Amazon now has a competitive Prime video offering, which allows users to stream TV shows and other movies on the device itself.
As someone who recently canceled his Netflix subscription, I’m looking forward to exploring Amazon’s media offerings. It’s going to be an interesting experiment.
Last, but certainly not least, the Kindle Fire is very big news and just the beginning.
by Aanarav Sareen on October 2, 2011
By far, this year has been one of the most interesting ones. From traveling to Italy for dinner and having wine under the Eiffel Tower, it has been a lot of fun.
On the work side, the group has worked with companies and agencies to launch new cars, new phones and a whole lot of great products.
I also launched my second book — Digital Media for Business — on September 6th. If you’d like a copy, send me an email and I’ll send over a free one for your reading pleasure.
I’m also changing the tone of this blog. Everything from here on will be direct; with harsher criticisms.
So — stay tuned as we reboot!
by Aanarav Sareen on April 16, 2011
Last year, I wrote a fairly lengthy post about the state of the entertainment industry. Fortunately (for me), most of the predictions in the post held true. And, they will continue to hold true for the rest of 2011. Digital media has taken an interesting step over the past couple of months — for the worse. The volume of independently produced content is through the roof and the competition in this space is aggressive.
As someone who now works on the financial side of content — advertising — it’s hard to justify spending a considerable amount of money on online video. Why? It’s too expensive and not engaging. Here’s what’ll matter in 2011:
- Social: Facebook and Twitter are obvious first steps, but they’re also the only reliable platforms in the social media space.
- Mobile: It’s a challenge to find non-smart phones. With a phone coming out every few weeks, the market is now mobile heavy with an aggressive push on mobile content and services.
- Tablet: Unlike mobile, tablet is still very new. However, with very few reliable players in the market — it’s a good place to be involved from a content creation or syndication standpoint.
Here’s what won’t matter in 2011:
- Online video: It hurts for me to say this, but it’s true. Content discovery on the web is just way too difficult and there is a lot of content being produced. The chances of finding an audience and then monetizing it is nearly impossible.
- Loyalty: In this case, loyalty means something very different. It means not sticking to one mobile platform. Android is growing faster than ever and Apple is countering nearly every move. Sticking with one platform only is a recipe for disaster.
- Fluff: A lot of people are saying that the bubble is back. It may be, but there’s a reason why some initiatives get funded while others do not. Fluff. Investors and users are very restrictive when it comes to spending money. In this market, there is no room for fluff. Sadly, most companies created in the past few years do just that — create and sell fluff.
