Imagine world with no paper. Imagine pocketable full color A4 size foldable screen no thicker than a few pages of paper. Imagine being connected and reading any story your care about on this new form, from websites, news articles to novels. Imagine future of ebooks.
Print media industry, has stated that smartphones are going to save them. This might be true, but in reality the savior is further away. When the ebook described above hits your pocket, the industry might be saved, but it will look very different from what we have today.
Kindle, Nook and other offer decent experience, but you are bind to propriety system with all the limitations. The mechanical design doesn’t come even near of a real book or magazine in your hands. Today’s experience is black and white and so reminds too much of TV in the 70’s.
Future ebook will enable new business models for authors and journalists. There will be huge number of channels which provide high quality content to match your needs. The great advance of always having something to read will be important, but not all. The future ebook will turn the lonely experience of reading into social.
Below you can watch Times Inc’s take on the Sports Illustrated Magazine in ebook form. Interesting, even compelling, but still there is something missing.
Being mediocre is not an option in today’s entertainment market where more products are being created than ever before. Affordable production technologies and internet as democratic publishing channel have opened the market. As internet offers an endless flow of obscure propositions for niche markets the global hits dominate the entertainment market sales. The almost-hits are selling less than before while the real hits are getting even bigger.
Why do hits dominate the entertainment space more than ever before?
People want something to talk about in coffee table and hits offers a safe common topic.
Consumer review skew towards hits. Hits are reviewed by more people who consume less entertainment and are so less critical to quality compared to niche products which are consumed by more critical aficionados.
Risk of failing to capitalize on the to-be hit makes studios, labels and publishers invest more and more on marketing of the products they have selected to be hits.
Bay area public transportation is decent in American standard, but it still takes two hours to move your body between Mt. View and SF. Although Caltrains are often late and there is no way to continue your journey from the SF Caltrain station, it still beats driving hands down.
In games iconic characters are the way to build a franchise and expand it beyond the game. Some of the best examples are Mario and Lara Croft. Mario and his friends have expanded into dozens of different games and other products. Lara Croft has had success on the silver screen as well as the lead character in Tomb Raider franchise.
The most famous character shop has been Disney who have build an empire on top of animated characters. Disney has in recent years invested over $10 billion on Pixar’s and Marvel’s iconic characters.
Iconic characters have great impact on marketing. Familiar game character or animated fish can sell almost anything. And the best thing is that they are very predictable compared to athletes or movie starts who can go crazy in their personal life. Although hard it’s also possible to build an iconic marketing character. One of the best examples is The Most Interesting Man in the World who is promoting Mexican beer:
I can’t wait before someone builds a beer or other masculine brand on top of this same concept in Finland. I can guarantee that it will work.
It was quite a surprise to see that the fixed gear bikes had landed in Helsinki big time. There is even a vibrant community organizing events and running a great blog on http://www.yksivaihde.net/site/. Check the video if you don’t know what this is all about. And also see other links below:
According to story someone leaked the Netflix company presentation, posted it on the web and people just loved it so much Netflix ended up putting it up on their jobs page. Judge yourself if the 120 some slides make you think Netflix differently.
