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Amazon's push is impressive. But let's not forget that everything in that push is iterative, not innovative.
Kindle 4= last year's Kobo Reader Wireless
Kindle Touch= this year's Kobo Touch
Kindle Fire= Nook Color from last year
Amazon App Store... well, you get the point.
The really innovative thing that Amazon has done is Special Offers (IOW, ad-supported versions of e book readers). Lot of folks HATED the idea when it was first introduced, but the public embraced-to such an extent that it is the "Special Offers " version that is the default , while the no-ads version has become the alternative. It is the "Special Offers" version that is responsible for those eye-popping price points. For example, the no ads version of the KF is $239- just 10 bucks less than the NC at $249. That's not the price being repeated endlessly, though -its the "magical" $199 for the KFSO.
Can the "technical " innovators- B&N and Kobo- counter this? Hard to see how.
The end game-Apple buys B&N, sells off the unprofitable B&M stores,
turns the rest into Apple Stores, and merges the digital division into iBooks. Google absorbs Kobobooks. In five years there will be only three ebookstores- Amazon, Apple, Google
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