Amazon Kindle 2 even better than the original

June 22, 2009 by chu 

Net: I loved the original Kindle and the Kindle 2 is even better.  Thinner, more durable, faster user interface and improved battery life.  It pays for itself in 6 months if you switch from buying the paper versions of the Boston Globe, NYT and WSJ to the KIndle versions.  If you click on the link below to buy one, 10% of the price will go to the nonprofit job training program Year Up.

Click Here to buy a Kindle from amazon.com and 10% of the price will be donated to Year Up

Last summer my wife bought me an Amazon Kindle for our anniversary.  I was so impressed with the device - and felt that it was so poorly marketed - I wrote a long email praising the product and sent it to everyone on my email list.  I had never done this before for any product or service.  I turned the email into a blog post and posted it on Collaboration Evangelist under the CHU Recommends section.

The post was titled 4 Reasons why the Amazon Kindle e-reader is one of the best devices ever, will help you lose weight, save money and lower your stress level. I won’t repeat all of the praise for the Kindle here; the main points I emphasized were:

  1. Although Amazon markets the Kindle as an electronic book reader, I find its real value comes from reading newspapers and blogs.  The Kindle automatically and wirelessly downloads newspapers and blogs to the device.  So anywhere in the country I wake up with the latest versions of the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe and the 10 blogs I follow on My Kindle. You never need to connect the device to your laptop.
  2. It is very readable, even in bright sunlight.
  3. The battery lasts for days.
  4. You get new content by searching right from the Kindle, purchasing with “one click” on the device and are billed through amazon.com as if you made an online purchase.  No need to enter passwords, credit cards, etc. on the Kindle. Books download in 60 seconds.
  5. It’s incredibly light, about as heavy as a Blackberry.
  6. It’s a great value, as long as you cancel your paper subscriptions.  Although the Kindle 2 is slightly more expensive than the original at $359 and the cover is sold separately for $30, it is still a great deal.  Breakeven is less than 6 months if you switch from paper to Kindle versions of three newspapers.  Books cost about $10; blogs are around a dollar a month.

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Three facts and 6 myths about Web 2.0

June 16, 2009 by chu 

The three facts:

  1. Forrester’s 2008 Technographics research found that over 50% of the members of all major age groups are actively engaged with at least one Web 2.0 application, including blogs, user reviews and social networks.

  2. A 2008 McKinsey study of over 1900 large enterprises around the world found that only 28% were applying at least one Web 2.0 technology or tool.
  3. Of those companies surveyed by McKinsey that had applied at least one Web 2.0 tool to their business in 2007 and 2008:
    • 21% were very or extremely satisfied with their investments
    • 22% were very or extremely dissatisfied with their investments

 Yes, more businesses were dissatisfied with their investment in Web 2.0 tools than were satisfied.

The six myths:

  1. My customer (or employee or business partners) base is too old to engage with Web 2.0 and social media tools. This makes a lot of sense for businesses that cater to a younger population, but not for us.
  2. Our business is in a serious industry where privacy is very important. Therefore using Web 2.0 tools would not be appropriate.
  3. Web 2.0 is a fad and it will go away.
  4. Less than 30% of businesses are using Web 2.0 tools; if it doesn’t fade away, the next person in my job can deal with it.
  5. Social media applications do not need to be “launched” either internally for employee applications or externally with customers or partners. You should just put them on the web or your intranet and if they are valuable, people will use them. We tried an experiment and nothing happened, all of the above are correct.
  6. No one has been able to measure the business impact or the ROI of investing in social media technology.

Data and case studies to support 1-6 to follow in future posts.  Let me know your favorite myths. 

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