Research and Analysis | Books | Newsjacking
Today the long awaited Kindle Fire is released. I am looking forward to getting mine.
The Kindle Fire is the new full-color tablet from Amazon. It is part of the Kindle family, which I've continually upgraded upon new releases. I take my Kindle on all my air travel, for me it is the ideal way to consume content on the road.
The Kindle Fire (as well as the Apple iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook) bring a non-linear experience to reading a book. You can instantly jump from one part of the book to another. And it is in full color.
Kindle Fire delivers a new kind of business book
I specifically wrote my new book Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage to take advantage of these full color interactive components. Newsjacking was conceived, written, and published as an e-book only publication.
Amazon leads the way in this marketplace for one simple reason, content. Amazon is a content company that happens to create technology. The Kindle is built to serve the content, not the other way around. For that reason, I predict it will become very popular.
Most tablets are just technology. The computer is built because every company needs a tablet but it is not purpose built to drive a content experience. Apple (with the iPad) and Amazon are both pioneers in this new world of optimized electronic content.
As an avid reader, one of the most compelling aspects is interactivity – you can instantly link from the book to external content. It means a book read on an iPad or Kindle Fire is like reading a blog post with links to valuable content from other places. It means you can check out the Twitter feed of the expert cited in the text or watch a video that provides context to a concept.
As a content creator, it is fantastic to work within these platforms. Readers get a terrific experience.
Incidentally, I'm not advocating that print is going away. Heck I read a daily print newspaper, many print books, and a bunch of print magazines. But strongly believe there is room for both print and optimized e-content.
Another important aspect of the Kindle Fire and iPad is the instant nature of content consumption. I’ve heard from about 50 people who, in less than a day, saw my new book, downloaded Newsjacking, read the entire thing (which takes about an hour) and wrote reviews, blog posts, or tweets about the book.
Now that's real-time.
Are you getting a Kindle Fire? Do you read books on an iPad?
