Outside Innovation

Amazon Challenges iTunes with Amazon Cloud Drive

At first blush, this new offering from Amazon sounds great! With Apple's iTunes, I can only play songs from my music library on the 3 or 4 devices that I have currently linked to my iTunes account.

With Amazon's Cloud Drive, I can store:

1. Anything I buy from Amazon for free forever

2. Anything I upload into my Amazon Cloud Drive, including, apparently my Apple iTunes-purchased music.

3. I can play anything from my Amazon Cloud Drive on any device and on as many (PC, Mac, or Android--for now) devices as I like, either by using the Amazon Cloud Player on the device's browser OR by downloading the MP3 file to that device and its native player

I DO have to pay for storage for anything I didn't purchase from Amazon--but it's $1 per Gig per year (after my first 5 gigabytes for free). Oh, and I get 20 additional Gigs free if I buy 1 song from Amazon.

And I can always export/download everything and store it locally if I prefer or don't want to keep paying Amazon.

Biggest surprise to me was the fact that I can apparently export all my iTunes-managed music to the Amazon cloud. Big slap in the face to Apple! I suspect that most people will keep both--itunes and Amazon Cloud, but migrate anything they want to play ANYWHERE to the Amazon cloud.

Oh, and by promoting music storage and "play anywhere" capabilities, Amazon is subtly promoting its cost-effective Amazon Cloud storage for personal storage of ALL my files -- including photos and videos and documents.

What's not to like?? What am I missing??

Why Amazon Opened an Android Appstore

Amazon sells digital goods. Lots of them: E-books, audio books, instant movies, online games, software, and now mobile apps. The digital goods that fly off the virtual shelves the most are those that can be easily purchased from the platform on which you consume those goods.

The Kindle was the first e-book reader to make it so ridiculously easy to buy and download digital books that the uptake was huge. Most readers who developed the Kindle habit increased their book purchasing metabolism by 2x to 5x. You don’t have to think about it. You’re reading something you like, and you just buy another book (or books) by the same author. In my case, I find prolific authors and I buy their entire works and read them in order. (I recommend Anne Rivers Siddons—an amazing writer and a satisfyingly prolific one!)

E-Books Sales Are Soaring. Spurred by the popularity of iPads, Kindles, and other e-book readers as holiday gifts, e-book sales (across all publishers and platforms) increased by 116% in January 2011 to $70 million. During the same month, adult paperback book sales dropped by 20%, and adult mass market paperback book sales dropped by 31%.