As we enter the next era of eBook readers with the KindleDX the beginning of the end is at hand. Textbook publishers are going to have to drastically rethink their business model. Bezos got it right although he is not thinking ahead enough. He’s holding on too tight to the technology and not letting the content lead the way. VHS v. Betamax – Mac v. Windows – Xerox v. Innovation. Many companies have made the same mistake. Bezos needs to realize Esther Dyson hit it right on the head in 1995 when she said,”content is king”. That was 14 years ago and it is still true. Bezos has made the right connections but lower the cost of the device. Make up for the R&D some other way. Make the books very cheap sell hundreds of them, do a serial thing where you need to download everyday. Get some color on that screen and syndicate comics, start an AmazonTV Channel when IPTV hits. Start commissioning shows and become a network.
Content will always be king – Esther had it right and still does. Use the new breadth of this medium to bring out the artists and the storytellers and the thinkers and the politicos. Break it wide open before the ISPs try to control it. Get the masses involved afterall we paid for it to get started now the ISPs want their piece. Not fair. You don’t sweep in like some interloper once the grunt work has been done. We built the Web through our taxes and our use. We the people made it what it is today. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Jim Clark, Ted Nelson, Douglas Englehardt, etc ,etc.
We need to keep it as free as possible and as open as possible. If we let the ISPs take over who can say what at what bandwidth we all lose. We need Net Neutrality and we need it to stay for good. My student did a great paper on it. Check my list of blogs and see it. I won’t give her name out now. But a great thinker and a great writer.
If we don’t stand up for Net Neutrality now we will lose it. Now is the time, the line is being drawn quietly. They are circling the camp and getting ready for sunrise as we sit and watch Prairie Dogs on YouTube. Get involved, write your congressman or any politician and tell them to keep the Net free as possible. If not this is the beginning of the end.
Do it today.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KUzuPiLd7E]