In the case of Jeff Bezos, the better man is indeed Steve Jobs. Moreover, he’s perfectly clear by saying that the Kindle will be the iPod of books . Let us not mince words

I saw in particular TV show on LCI (22 November) and frankly, it wasn’t a breakthrough : ” What has been the success of Amazon’s approach is that it focuses on the needs of users and not on the supply of competitors. ” It is true that the purchasing recommendations ( “customers who bought this, also bought this …”) and the “One click buy” were really major innovations. Probably those that have marked the last decade of e-commerce.
OK, but now what’s next?

When you look at this Kindle, master piece of the Amazon strategy, it is reasonable to wonder if this is not a joke. While Bezos wants to be the iPod of books, one recalls the look of the iPod revolutionary at the time, not counting the interface of the magic touch wheel. The kindle a gray, bulky, highlights the corners, very few ergonomic (those who have listened Philippe Starck to analyze the kindle reader during leweb3 will understand …). An outmoded design, this is what we feel when we see the equipment. Such a bad begining.

The concept of e-books apparently dates from 1998. With eg REB1200 . At that time, everyone was betting that the paper book would disappear. Well no, the book is doing well, even today. Why the first generation of ebook readers did failed ? bad timing, product immaturity (liquid crystal displays, memory, batteries, connectivity, usability, etc.), immaturity of the market ( editors were afraid to distribute their content in this way, misunderstanding of the concept by clients, lack of downloadable contents, affordability of materials and contents), bad marketing performance ? I am not qualified to tell the reasons, but it was a flop, and a big one.

Recently, the french news paper “Les echos” launched its e-paper. Maturity of the customers, availability of contents, business model targeted to financial professionals, who consume large amounts of information. In short, the framework was much more serious thus more credible. The result : After 3 months, 1500 customers, according to an interview with Cyberpresse . This is the target set by Philippe Jeannet. This seems ridiculous compared to 130000 daily copies of the newspaper and one million unique visitors per month on the site. But at € 700 per unit, included subscription (365 € per year), it’s not bad though.

And now it’s Amazon to enter the scene with great communication. The main innovation of their product is that you can download books from anywhere in wifi or GSM, indifferently. And then, like sending paper books, Amazon takes care of all the costs for transporting the electronic book. This is a major argument because WiFi coverage is bad when you’re on mobility and GSM data connections are horribly expensive. And then there’s also this technology epaper which has, unlike LCD, the advantage of no energy consumption, except during the change of state (roughly when turning pages)

However, Kindle no shortage of weaknesses even ridiculously blockers. And if there is one thing that Jeff Bezos may rely once again, it’s to go against the tide. Where Apple and even many majors have effectively (and finally?) abandoned the DRM. Amazon claims loud and clear his proprietary system. First, you will not lend an electronic book (I mean the files) to your friends, but you will not be able to include files as free pdf. You must first convert your files in their proprietary format. But that’s not all. You can download RSS feeds, but you have to pay for it, yes, pay to read blogs that are free on the web. Worse you are captives of the format and you have no guarantee of being able to read another purchased book in another equipment…

So what Jeff Bezos wants to go and why is it massively followed by publishers?
Probably, because there is an old dream of publishers since Gutemberg: prevent literary from being copied, lent to friends, available in libraries and sold on second hand markets. Because of course you can’t lend your kindle to a friend, if you still want to read your other books that are inside
We could imagine that in the long run it will require you to pay again to read the book a second time.

It is a model, but it will not be easy to convince consumers. Especially with a purchase price of $ 400 US.
Also, there is cultural property by the public, sharing experiences with friends, access to culture to the poor people. But that is another debate
For the time being, Kindle is only available the united states. Let’s see how the market will react
Especially as the Readius arrives …

However, it seems that Kindle was sold out. More stock for Christmas … And $ 1500 on ebay. Real excitement, incompetence or handling logistics marketing well-known for creating the rarity ? and therefore generate buzz and give a hand “Hype” to the product …

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This time, we still innovate by proposing one evening in 3 acts; -) A topic, the presentation of a project and the traditional time of networking.

Next Monday, Pierre Chappaz will present Wikio and art to optimize your presence on a news search engine.
Then Nathalie Magniez will present her Blooble project.

To get information and register you, go on the Wiki of Swiss Web2.

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If you like the Internet and contacting people and if you know perfectly at least one of the languages where Wikio is present, this job is made for you!
The languages are: English, Spanish, German, Italian

You will be under the responsibility of the person in charge Marketing (“your servant”, to paraphrase Tristan Nitot )

It is a paid internship in full-time or partial time telecommuting, which can lead to a long-term contract.

Send your resume only by e-mail to interns@wikio.com

See the posts on the blogs Wikio:

• French : Wikio recrute des stagiaires commerciaux
• Spanish : Wikio busca Becario comercial
• German : Wikio sucht Praktikanten im Bereich Marketing

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Thomas of the blog “the rivère with ducks” publishes a video and a post “My day with Pierre Chappaz and Catherine Nivez “.

Pierre also speaks about it on Kelblog. He offered himself, I quote, a cure of désinto.
The small quotation of Catherine: “The luxury of the future will not be any more to be everywhere connected, but to precisely have the advisability of not being it.”

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And this month, there are new categories Gastronomie, Littérature, Loisirs and Sport in addition to the traditional categories Général, Politique and High-Tech.
To find your blog in the classification: (for that just type the name of your blog in the field corresponding to the category)

Classification general
Classification Gastronomy:
High-tech classification:
Classification Literature:
Classification Leisures:
Political classification:
Classification Sport:

Think of also placing your badge of Wikio classification on your blog! That is only done in a few minutes.

And then a little self-centredness for the end. I made a spectacular jump this month. I am 74th in hightech and 169th in general. Last month, I was respectively 292th and 1127th.

They speak about it:

• Mashable
• Kelblog

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Wikio becomes also a RSS reader with the ability to create your own tabs , mixing RSS feeds and tags. All the relevant stuff are aggregated and sorted by Wikio. It’s a simple way to follow all your favorite feeds, without having to checking each one of them, as Netvibes allows it.

Thanks also to the great work of the Procab agency in Geneva (Christian, Vincent and David), Wikio is so simple that geeks disregard it but mainstream users like it

More than my full agreement with the concept of Wikio (both business / product standpoint), the ability to work with Laurent Binard and Pierre Chappaz was also a key point for me to join the team. I’d say, I’m also glad to work with Arnaud, Bertrand, Alexis. I met the whole team and it is a great team of almost 30 skilled professionals.

Netvibes was a wonderful experience. I’m proud to have founded the business team in Europe : Arduino, Maren, Marina and Raphael. Glad also to have collaborated with the US business team, managed by Freddy Mini and Chris Damsen. Together, we reached our goal : 500 universes (more than 100 french ones).

But, as we collectively reached our ambitious objective, I’m in a great mood for joining Wikio. I wish the Netvibes team the accomplishment of the both big challenges in the coming months : to convince the mainstream and find a way to earn revenues.

I’ll begin my job next monday as the Marketing Manager with Wikio.

For those who know me, I’ll stay based in my small village in Haute-Savoie, with view of Geneva and the Geneva Lake.

To get introduced or stay in contact : Linkedin and Xing profiles, email.

Related news : Pierre Chappaz announced he left Netvibes. Also available in French: J’ai décidé de quitter Netvibes

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Mingle² - Online Dating

Thanks to Pierre for the link

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• Touch screen on all the surface of the device
• Scroll and zoom by sliping your fingers on the screen
• The orientation of the screen (portrait / landscape) changes when you turn the device.

Below, a rather cool video produced by NewYork Times. Do you know that Wikio Shopping lists all the contents relating to the iPhone 4 Go and the iPhone 8 Go? Therefore, if you seek the tests, news, video, photographs, it is the place where to go! Note a new blog entirely dedicated to the iPhone: Iphon.fr.

They wrote about it:

• Lewebameilleurgout
• Techcrunch
• Journal of Geek
• Transnets
• Press citron

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