Tag: Amazon

Bezos Interview: Publishing and Fire Phone

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I recently read this interview of Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.  It’s pretty interesting.  Some thoughts:

eBooks / Publishing

I had always assumed that the print/book industry was really struggling – similar to the music industry.  However, Bezos’s quote of, “…the facts are wrong. Publishers are having unparalleled profitability, and the book industry is in better shape than it ever has been, and it’s because of e-books” is interesting.  

It’s also interesting that they take such a long-term view for the Kindle.  As Bezos states, “The vision for Kindle is every book, every imprint, in any language, all available in 60 seconds.”  That’s quite a mission.  They are definitely doing really well so far. 

The Amazon Phone

He admits that it’s a flop but contends that it’s just the start of them being in that business.  He states, “The Kindle is now on its seventh generation. The Kindle Voyage, the new premium product, is just completely killer. Fire TV, Fire TV Stick — we’re having trouble building enough. Amazon Echo, which we just launched. So there’s a lot of activity going on in our device business. With the phone, I just ask you to stay tuned.”

I wonder how many times they plan on iterating on the phone.  He talks about bold bets with things like Kindle, AWS and third-party resellers, but building a phone and competing against Apple, Android (they aren’t using core Android), Samsung and others is entirely different.  While audacious, i’m not sure I see how they can differentiate. 

Drones

He did an interview with “60 Minutes” and showcased their drone delivery system.  It was awesome.  He was asked about it here.  As you’d expect, he thinks the main thing holding it back is the regulatory issues, saying, “The most interesting part of this is the autopilot and the guidance and control and the machine vision systems that make it all work. As for when, though, that is very difficult to predict. I’d bet you the ratio of lawyers to engineers on the primary team is probably the highest at Amazon.“

I think it’s the same for self-driving cars (I have a bet they’ll be here by 2023).  It totally works right now but the world is just not ready for it.  There are so many unanswered questions, such as: if someone gets killed or severely injured by a self-driving car, who’s liable?  Is it the person who bought the car, the company that built the car? Is there some level of insurance that you can get?  

Anyway, some good thoughts in there.  It’s worth a read.

 

 

iLike & Myspace – it doesn’t make sense

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myspaceilikeiLIke was purchased by MySpace this week for $20 million.  Hearing this annoucement, i couldn’t help think that something was off.  Something just doesn’t make sense.

Some facts: iLike has 50 million registered users.  That’s a huge number.  They are definitely one of the most popular applications on Facebook and one of the best applications anywhere for concerts. They have built some things that are quite hard to build such as:

  • A mp3 download store (link)
  • A music activity feed crawling millions of artists and millions of users
  • A ticketing system integrated with Ticketmaster
  • A self-serve advertising system

They have raised $16 million bucks and claim to be profitable.  Both Facebook and Amazon were interested in the deal.   If both of these are true why would they sell for $20 million? Selling for $20 means that the investors get their money back and then then $4 million gets spread around to shareholders.  Basically nobody makes any money that they are happy about.

To compare, Facebook just bought FriendFeed for $20 million and they have 1 million monthly uniques.  iLike has at least 3x that on the web and 50x total and they are growing.

Also, I can’t imagine why a dynamic, fast moving company would want to go work at MySpace instead of Facebook or Amazon.

  • MySpace vs. Facebook. One is doing a fantastic job of innovating and developing new innovative software (FB).  The other is bleeding users, bleeding cash (MySpace Music) and restructuring.  iLike has also actively been courting Facebook for the past 3 years. They’ve thrown Facebook / iLike parties and done everything possible to try to get a FB acquisition.  Going with MySpace is strange
  • MySpace vs. Amazon. One (Amazon) is in iLike’s backyard in Seattle and the other is down in LA.  One is making good inroads into providing a viable music store to iTunes.  The other (MySpace) started as a primary space for music but is now controlled by the labels and is getting worse and worse as they try to cut costs.

Both of those don’t make sense so then you have to conclude that they are just doing this for the money.  But if (a) they are profitable and (b) it’s only $20 million on $16m raised then that doesn’t make sense either.

My conclusion from all this non-sense:

  • iLike was not profitable and were running out of money.  They needed to either raise more money or sell.
  • Fatigue.  Working in the digital music industry and having success at it is exhausting.   Your main content source (music) brings with it tons of headaches.  The labels are working against you every step of the way
  • Facebook had no interest in getting into the music business.  I think they see content area as something for partners and although iLike probably asked them repeatedly, they backed away from the deal.  There is no better content company that is more integrated into Facebook than iLike.  If FB didn’t want them, they’re not going to get anyone.
  • MySpace paid more than $20 million.  They won’t disclose the terms but my guess is that there is some kicker in there that made the deal very attractive to the shareholders.  Too bad we don’t know what it is.

At least one or more of these have to be true.  What are your thoughts?

Wolf Shirt Amazon Review

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51jZitVcKmL._AA280_This is a review i came across on Amazon and i think it needs to be shared.  Had me laughing this morning.  Take a look at the t-shirt on the right.  Here’s the Amazon page that sells it for $13.78.  The first review on the page reads like this:

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn’t have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the ‘guns’), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

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