Last week, Jeff Bezos made $2 billion in one day, courtesy of a massive spike in Amazon shares. That gives him more money to plow into the likes of Aviary, a Long Island-based company that makes design software. The Amazon CEO has made a second investment in the company as part of a $7 million round led by Spark Capital.
Amazon won’t even tell us how many Kindles it has actually sold, so projecting how many it’s going to move in the future makes for particularly tough fortune-telling. But that doesn’t stop anyone from trying: Forrester thinks Jeff Bezos and company will move 600,000 newly discounted units this holiday season and sell 1.8 million by the end of 2009.
It took several months–and a lawsuit–but Jeff Bezos and company are finally explaining when, and why, they’ll take away books you bought for your Kindle. Pretty reasonable, really.
Is Time Inc. building a Kindle Killer? Nope.
A report suggests that Time Inc. wants to get into the hardware business and produce its own e-reader.
That’s something other publishers, like Hearst and News Corp., are actually doing or have at least mulled. But multiple sources familiar with the Time Warner unit’s thinking say that’s not the case here.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t make it to his company’s earnings call today, but he did find time to apologize for Kindlegate–Amazon’s ham-fisted removal of George Orwell novels from his customers’ e-book readers. Great, right? Almost.
Amazon’s Q2 was just what Wall Street was expecting–which in Wall Street’s perverse logic means that Wall Street will be disappointed. Amazon delivered net sales of $4.65 billion and earnings of 32 cents per share; consensus called for $4.67 billion and 32 cents. Jeff Bezos might have been able to allay investors’ worries, but he was a no-show for the conference call.
Are you one of those Kindle owners who stuffs your device with cheap e-books? Enjoy it now, say analysts at Bernstein Research. Because they’re not going to stay cheap, or at least, not quite as cheap, forever. Right now Amazon makes much more money selling you a hardcover book than a digital one. That can’t go on indefinitely.
Amazon hasn’t even introduced its newest iteration of the Kindle–that happens today at 10:30 Eastern time–and already the gadgeteers are griping. I’ll be covering the event live, but before we get to that, let’s acknowledge just how far the e-book reader has come.
Amazon won’t come out and say exactly what happened to it sales-ranking system over the past few days. But it is sorry, and it would like the Web and its customers to know that it wasn’t singling out books aimed at gays and lesbians.
At today’s Kindle 2.0 unveiling, CEO Jeff Bezos took pains to point out that at some time you will be able to read Kindle books on non-Kindle devices. Of course, he didn’t provide any other details. So does an iPhone tie-up make sense at some point? Or does he have something else up his sleeve?
Live from the Morgan Library in New York, Amazon unveils the second version of its much-hyped e-book. It looks like an Apple product and costs as much as the old Kindle–$359.
Can’t wait for the debut of Kindle 2.0, which should arrive around 10 a.m. this morning in New York? Here’s a splash of cold water, courtesy of Jeffrey Lindsay: The Bernstein Research analyst says Amazon’s much hyped e-book reader is merely a “niche product”–and that the e-commerce giant wants to keep it that way.
Also, look for MediaMemo’s liveblog of the Kindle event soon.
When will see a new version of the Kindle, Amazon’s much-talked-about e-book reader? Maybe next month: The company will be holding an “important” press conference in New York on Monday Feb. 9, it tells me–though it won’t say what it plans to talk about.
Amazon’s data-free claim that it posted its “best ever” holiday season this month has gotten a deservedly skeptical reception. But here’s one vote in favor of Jeff Bezos’s e-commerce giant: A customer satisfaction poll that singles out just Amazon and Netflix for praise.
Amazon has been selling digital music from all the big music labels for nearly a year now. It hasn’t changed Apple’s grip on that business in any way, and it hasn’t made any money for Amazon. But don’t write it off as a failure just yet.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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