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Old 11-14-2011, 02:26 PM   #15
fjtorres
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools View Post
Most likely they are: Which is why an ad-supported B&N model is inevitable. I see no evidence at all that an ad-supported ereader is a " passing fad". Buyers of ad-supported ereaders love their devices and Amazon has made the ad-supported model the default option, with the ad-free model being the alternative.
B&N may also do a cheap, no-touch alternative.Its clear to me that PRICE, not lack of ads, is driving the ereader market. If that were not the case, B&N would be touting the freedom from ads on their devices and would not be lowering their prices
About all that can be drawn from the failure of the ad-supported PC experiment is that ad support doesn't work everywhere and in all circumstances, and that implementation matters.
Yup!
Implementation matters, which is why Amazon bills the Kindle ads as "Special Offers" while B&N pretends their home screen doesn't already devote a third of the screen to ads. (They reallly shouldn't harp too strongly on the Kindle and Kobo ads or they'll be risking a backlash over their, literally, self-serving ads.)

Ad-supported readers may be with us for a while but there is no guarantee they will be around forever, precisely because price matters, but it is not the only thing that matters. Not to the vendor or to the ad-buyer. (Or *all* buyers.)

As the hardware gets cheaper and the ad-free price drops, the ad-support discount starts to overwhelms the price, rendering the readers essentially (if not literally) free. Which changes the owner profile.

Part of the reason Amazon (and Kobo) can offer the SO discount is that ebook readers attract a highly desirable demographic to the advertisers; it is targetted advertising that is, on paper, more effective in reaching the potential customer than carpetbombing the internet with banner ads.

Most people buy ebook readers to read, not to stick them in a closet. But once the price goes down much lower than where it is, you'll start getting a lot of owners who use them for a few weeks and then forget about the reader for months. And the value of the discount to the advertiser will perforce go down.

We're already seeing it with the Kindles: the K4 gets a $30 discount (which is more like $20, since it really should sell for $99, ad-free) while the K Touch gets a nominal $50 discount (again, more like $30-40.) A next gen K5 might come in at $69 ad-free and $49 in a Special Offers model, which might not be enough of a spread to bother unless Amazon started profiling the devices individually, a can of worms not worth the effort.

Amusingly, the Special Offers that today are greasing entry level sales, may in the future be more productively re-targetted to higher-end readers, say the 3G Kindles and future color models where a $50+ ad-supported discount might make the difference between a $299-249 price point and the magical $199.

That ad-supported readers have gotten this far is enouh of a surprise; they might proliferate even more or wear out their welcome and vanish by next xmas. So far, Kobo seems to be betting on the former and B&N on the latter.
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