Rev2.org

When Amazon announced their fourth quarter sales and financials, they showed a marked improvement going up 42% to $9.5 billion for the end of the year.  Buried in those results was another startling set of numbers: the Kindle sold exceptionally well during the Holiday season and for every 10 physical books sold, Amazon sells 6 digital ones.

The real shocker with the Kindle numbers blew most analysts out of the water.  According to TechCrunch, analysts expected the company to sell around 2.5 million by the end of 2010, but Amazon has apparently beaten that number by hitting the three million mark before the end of 2009!

That’s amazing and is followed by another bit of news, just released from Amazon this morning: the Kindle Reader software is available for free for PC download and will soon be coming to the Mac and possibly even the iPhone.  This is probably to encourage new users who may eventually upgrade to a real Kindle device, which will be facing competition from the new iPad from Apple and is seeing competition now from the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Another innovative device, which will likely be on shelves this year, may put the Kindle, the Nook, and possibly even the iPad out of business is the Pixel Qi.  This innovative device is quietly being put into production by LCD legend Mary Lou Jepsen who is quite literally responsible for the tech that makes netbooks possible–cheap screens.

She did that while engineering $100 laptops for One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit dedicated to bringing computers and Internet access to underpriveledged children world wide.

The reader market is the one to watch for this years’ greatest innovations in gadgetry.  While the iPad is slowing down the Internet with all of its buzz (for what reason, I can’t fathom), it’s not the innovation to keep your eye on, in my estimation.  That belongs to the emergence of the digital book reader, which might soon replace dead tree publication altogether.

Apple finally made the announcement about their new touch screen (“tablet”) computer called the iPad yesterday and today, every tech site on the ‘Net seems immersed in commentary and speculation about how the device will measure up, how much it looks like an oversized iPhone, and who can best guess the “big picture” on the thing.

Let’s look at an iPad reality check instead.

As we reported yesterday, McGraw-Hill’s CEO leaked information about the device that he probably shouldn’t have.  That seems to have angered Steve Jobs, Apple’s big man, because at the product announcement event yesterday, the McGraw-Hill logo was significantly missing from Jobs’ slide presentation.  Uh-oh.

Further, Apple could find themselves in some legal hot water over the iPad’s name, since Fujitsu came out with a product of exactly the same name in 2002, as shown here by the New York Times.  Maybe Apple should consider renaming the device before its release.  Perhaps the Apple iPhoneXL (for Xtra Large)?

A few things that some might find disheartening about the iPad are the lack of a camera, the lack of anything remotely resembling the stylus-style inputs of true “touch screens” (it has a virtual keyboard instead), and that it has no video out (HDMI) for watching video on a real screen.

Other missing components include the ability to play Flash and is missing standard ports for plug-ins–everything needs an adapter.  Also, like the iPhone, the iPad is locked into the 3G network of AT&T and friends.  That’s probably the number one consumer complaint for the iPhone and Apple totally ignores it.  Again.

There are a lot of other things to make this device a no-go for a lot of people.  The inability to run apps other than officially approved iTunes Store offerings and the inability to multi-task are big ones.  These are probably the number one reason the iPad will not be seen as anything but a glorified toy by most of us.  I mean, for $499, we can get a pretty decent and similarly-sized netbook computer that can do everything the iPad can’t.  So why spend the money on the iPad?  Is a touch screen really all that and a bag of chips?

I don’t think so.  Disappointing, for sure.  I’m a big iPhone fan, but for the price, I see no reason to spend money on something that’s much less portable and has few trade-offs to make up for it.

CNBC got the scoop yesterday afternoon when they interviewed McGraw-Hill’s CEO, Terry McGraw.  The publishing company, which is one of the world’s largest textbook publishers, has penned a deal with Apple to offer select textbooks to students through the iPhone and, he let slip, the forthcoming Apple tablet.

In fact, he specifically said Tablet and also said it would be based on the iPhone operating system, making it “transferable.”  The Chief Executive was so excited about the new deal, he seems to have slipped and let the cat out of the bag before Apple’s big event, which is to unveil today.

The buzz is all over with everyone from Macrumors to the LA Times and the Huffington Post getting in on the surprise revelation before Apple’s big day.

Of course, no everyone thinks the McGraw slip was accidental.  Andrew Munchbach at the Boy Genius Report seems to think it was another part of Apple’s media leaks to generation buzz.  It’s certainly done so, with the focus now being on what the new tablet will look like, when it will be available for sale, and various details rather than on the announcement of the tablet itself.

Whatever the announcement, the cat is definitely out of the bag.  Rumors have Apple in 11th hour negotiations with other publishers, which up until now included McGraw-Hill who seems to have happily signed on.  The CEO also said that the publisher already has several titles ready for the new Apple tablet.

The New York Times’ Brad Stone and Stephanie Clifford talked about how Apple may be giving the print media industry (including, ironically, the NYT itself) a chance to re-invent itself using the new device.  The iPhone is already popular enough to be one of the leading ways that many access their print media, especially news, and the upcoming tablet–expected to be announced tomorrow–is poised to be even more popular.

The problem is that given Apple’s past performance with media, specifically music, the publishers of print media may not like what they’ll have to give up in order to work with Apple.  With iTunes, the music industry had to make deep concessions about their products and bend to the controlling will of Steve Jobs.  Many in the industry continue to be unhappy about their relationship with iTunes and see it as a necessary evil until something better comes along to replace it.

Their relationship with Google and YouTube, however, seems to be quite the opposite.  Print media, already operating on relatively low margins of profit, may find that the concessions required by Jobs and iTunes to “get on board” may be too deep.

In an interview with Andreas Haas, CEO of Axiotron, PC Magazine talked about the former top executive with Apple’s European division about the imminent Apple tablet device and what he thought it would be.  Haas seems to think it will be a more powerful, larger, and more useful iPhone or iPod Touch device with the ability to be a true portable mini-computer beyond what today’s smart phones and PDAs are capable of.  It will not, however, be a true tablet (which he says is designated by being able to write on the screen).

It’s expected that Apple will announce the tablet (or a similar device) tomorrow at a scheduled press conference.  The question is: will the new device be just another iPhone or will it truly be another revolution in portable computing?

There is something that most online retailers have really missed and it’s the reason that 97.3% of browsers who enter e-commerce sites don’t buy anything and the reason that of those who do put things in their shopping carts, 61% will abandon the cart without purchase. That reason?

Buying stuff on most e-commerce websites, including Amazon and eBay, is a real pain. It’s a multi-multi-step process and it’s easy to get lost or lose faith in your purchase and just walk away. Most of the shopping experiences online are similar to walking into Kmart and seeing no isles and no shelving, just piles of stuff with little signs on them. Then when you go to checkout, you have to wade through a clerk who checks your ID, another who checks your card number, and another who verifies your address, and finally one who tells you that your stuff will ship “within 3 business days.”

Not so with Glyde.com. This has got to be one of the most sleek, simple, and easy-to-buy-from websites I’ve ever used. Ever.

Glyde was created by Simon Rothman in 2006 and is built on his experience at one of the worst shopping portals on the planet.. eBay Motors.

Glyde deals only in DVDs, CDs, games and books (media, basically) and is basically, at its core, a Google search screen with nice, easy to see, purchasable products. If you want to get a copy of Old Yeller on the cheap, you just search for “Old Yeller movie” (or similar) and sure enough, that’s about all that pops up.

The search is about as good as it can get and the process of buying? One lick to BUY NOW, three fields of information, and you’ve made a purchase. That’s it.

Selling on the site, which is still in beta, is almost as easy and definitely made with the hobby seller in mind. No fancy gimmicks, add-ons, or anything like that. Just find your item in their catalog, list it, choose a price (which is limited by current market values), and post it. Glyde gets paid when you do and even sends you a post-paid, pre-addressed envelope to ship it in.

This is definitely a site worth checking out and using. Rarely am I this impressed with a new site.

Twitter has changed how new users just signing up find others on the app.  Rather than the old, random, Suggested User list of (mostly) celebrities, Twitter has installed a new Suggestions list based on topics.  The change was officially announced on the Twitter blog today.

Each of about twenty categories (including Books, Fashion, Tech, and the like) has a floating list of users that Twitter keeps track of.  Active users are Twitter are categorized by the subject matter of their posts and their activity level.  Those who are most active in each category will be featured.  The list is dynamic, so whoever’s there today might not be tomorrow.

Current memes, such as Haiti (the current one), are created by the staff as well, so that users can more easily find news and relevant information.  These are hand-picked by the staff of Twitter and will change as the news stream shifts with new events.

TechCrunch, of course, likes the new changes, but laments the new inability to mass follow those on the lists that come up.  At least they disclose that this is because they’re on the Suggested User list (under Technology).  So far, no word from Ashton Kutcher, but I’m sure he hates this new development.

Interestingly, Tumblr came out with something very similar to the new Twitter Suggested User list on their site as well.  It doesn’t seem to be as well thought out, however.  As Andrew Mager on ZDNet points out, though, anything is an improvement when it comes to linking social media users.  Especially when compared to the old “surf and hunt fruitlessly for an hour or just give up” choices.