Crenk » amazon

Ebay All the Way for Students

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:29:43 +0000

So school and college are starting back soon. Just a few short weeks, in fact. That means thousands, no millions, of young people will be met by costs that would normally have been put on daddy’s credit card. What makes this year worse is that there are few part time jobs around that would have normally paid for the laptops, textbooks, stationary and gadgets that are to be found in the typical student’s backpack. The situation is especially bad in Europe where students and those leaving school have led protests – even violent ones such as those in France and Ireland.

This is good news for Ebay, Amazon and the likes.

The sale of low-end student laptops online is rising. Why pay 600 big ones in store for the latest machine when you could have last year’s model that will satisfy all your needs for a quarter of the price? After all, when at college a decent word processer and internet access is all you need.

Other items which are making big sales in the ‘back to school rush’ are backpacks, art supplies, cameras, suitcases and technical equipment specific to certain courses such as design and engineering.

Here I stand tapping out this article on my phone beside Trinity College in Dublin as I’m away from my desk this week. Students walk by me with iPhones and Macbooks preparing their dorms for their third or fourth year in college. For this year’s freshmen it’s going to be Ebay all the way – in the opinion of this Crenk reporter at least.

Zune HD Available on September 15th and Pre-Ordering Already Started

Steven Finch — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:37:07 +0000

Previously here at Crenk we have talked a lot about the upcoming Zune HD. We have mentioned the new features on the Zune HD as well as the inclusion of Nvidia Tegra and other features.

Today Microsoft officially announced that the Zune HD would launch on September 15th, 2009 in two models differing only in storage capacity: 16 GB for $219.99 and 32 GB for $289.99, confirming the leaks and rumors of the previous few days. Pre-orders began on August 13th.

Amazon Pre-Order for only = $289.99

Tech Spec:

32 GB capacity for up to 8,000 songs, 48 hours standard definition video, or 10 hours high definition video
3.3-inch OLED screen with 480 x 272 resolution and 16:9 display
HD Radio gives you access to many local stations with crystal-clear digital sound at no extra cost
Watch supported 720p HD movies, TV shows, and videos in high definition
Buy, stream, and update your music, download free games, and surf the web via a Wi-Fi connection

Amazon Has Launched Their Mobile Application for Android

Steven Finch — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:07:22 +0000

Good news for all the Android users out there is that Amazon has launched an app for the Android platform that will allow you do mobile shopping right through your Android phone, receive new offers or even track your purchases.

The Android Amazon application includes:

Fast: Shop over 40 product categories from Amazon
Convenient: Access your Amazon account, wish-list, cart, payment and shipping details and much more.
Secure: All orders placed through the app are processed by Amazon’s secured servers.

The app even lets you make 1-click purchases and the most interesting of all, you can search for a product on Amazon by taking a snapshot of its barcode and the app will search through the Amazon catalogue.

The app can be downloaded for free from the Android App Market.

Sony E Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Are Official

Steven Finch — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:38:23 +0000

Sony has released two new eBook readers today which are the Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition. Priced at $199 and $299 respectively, Sony’s new eBook reader duo has been rumored for quite some time now and thanks to a J&R snafu, we even caught the full specs this past Monday.

Leading titles for these readers will be available for purchase on the Sony eBook store from $9.99 to $11.99. Sony has stated that Mac compatibility and wireless eBook downloading a la Kindle are on the horizon.

I still feel that these readers from Sony and others such as the Samsung Pocket eReaders are a long way behind Amazon’s Kindle. The sexiness of the products just arent there!

Windows 7 Pricing

Augusto Alvarez — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:04:16 +0000

There has been a lot of speculation about this for a long time, but Microsoft announced officially the pricing that is related with Windows 7 in retail and upgrade versions. And guess what? It will be cheaper than Vista.

The difference isn’t all that much with the original pricing in Vista, but still the operating system is different and I’m sure you won’t regret the money invested in this OS as you may regretted with Vista. Here’s the detailed pricing:

Retail Versions

Windows 7 Home Premium – $199.99 – [Vista Home Premium - $249.99]
Windows 7 Professional – $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate – $319.99 – [Vista Ultimate - $319.99]

Upgrade Versions

Windows 7 Home Premium – $119.99 – [Vista Home Premium - $129.99]
Windows 7 Professional $199.99
Windows 7 Ultimate – $219.99 – [Vista Ultimate - $219.99]

But wait, there’s more. There are some more good news about pre-ordering Windows 7 and getting 50% discount over the pricing mentioned above.

Amazon and other sites are offering discounts for those that purchase their Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional versions before July 11th:

Windows 7 Home Premium – $50.00
Windows 7 Professional $100.00

Check Amazon Windows 7 site.

Nokia Releases the N97

Steven Finch — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:46:12 +0000

The Nokia N97 has been released as scheduled. We previously stated that it would be released on the 2nd June and it has been launched a little later on the 10th June. The N97 will be available from flagship stores in New York and Chicago.

If you arent in the USA and not able to make it to these stores then head over to Amazon because they seem to have some in stock.

This release from Nokia comes right on the heals of the new and improved iPhone 3Gs announcement and adds some healthy competition to Apple’s reigning smartphone champion. The N97 sports not only a wide touchscreen display but also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to add some ease and speed to your mobile communications. The internal storage capacity is boasted at a strong 32GB internal with an SD card slot supporting up to another 16GB. You’ll also find a 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and the ability to shoot (and store) some nice-quality video.

Nokia has the price set at $699.99 and Amazon currently has $96 off of that bringing the N97 to just over $600.

Amazon Launches Kindle Store for iPhone and iPod Touch

Steven Finch — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:36:18 +0000

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) today launched a Kindle Store optimized for the Safari Web browser on iPhone. Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on “Get Books,” the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari. This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store’s 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.

Dell Download Store Launches With Games, Music and Software at Great Prices

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:49:50 +0000

Dell has finally launched their new download store. Dell has partnered with French company Nexway to release the download store which offers music, games and software. The Dell download store allows all worldwide users to purchase games and software, but there currently is a restriction on music because of “publishing and licencing agreements with [Dell's] digital music partners.”

The music files will be available from major labels and will include leading artists, all without digital right managements solutions as MP3 files.

The store currently sells the Brit Awards 2009 for £9.99; both Play.com and Amazon did not have the album available for digital download.

Single tracks are available for 79 pence but the user interface lacks the intuitiveness of other available solutions like 7digital.

Amazon Launches Casual Gaming Download Store

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:01:51 +0000

Amazon has launched on Tuesday a new video game download store. The site itself can be found here. The initial library offers over 600 games which are all under $10. All casual games are currently for the PC platform, but Im sure this will branch out in the near future.

The store allows customers to download and try any game for 30 minutes, after which point they may choose to pay for the full version.

“We have 88 million active customers who can appreciate the convenience of the true amazon shopping experience combined with the casual games experience,” Greg Hart, VP of video games and software at Amazon, told Kotaku.

While the service currently lacks some of the more popular casual games from top publishers, it will look to expand its selection.

Amazon recently acquired casual game developer Reflexive, which counts a library of over 1,000 games.

Amazon Mp3 Store Launches For UK Market

Steven Finch — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:19:48 +0000

Amazon has just launched their Mp3 Music store in the UK. The store can be found at http://mp3.amazon.co.uk. The simple-to-use digital music store offering over 3 million DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) songs which will work on any MP3 player including the iPod™- with top-selling albums from just £3 and individual songs from 59p.

Amazon Mp3 UK has all four major labels signed up, SonyBMG, Universal Music, EMI Music and Warner Music – and leading independents such as Cooking Vinyl, Harmonia Mundi, Beggars Banquet, The Orchard, Concord and IODA.

Greg Greeley, Vice-President of Amazon EU Retail said: “We’re excited to provide our UK customers with more ways to discover and enjoy great music. In addition to the millions of low-priced CDs available in our music store, Amazon MP3 now provides a vast selection of DRM-free albums and songs across every genre you can think of, ready to enjoy in seconds”.

Amazom Relaunches Latin Music Store

Steven Finch — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:18:53 +0000

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the relaunch of its Latin Music Store, www.amazon.com/latin, with Earth’s largest selection of Latin music titles. Focused on delivering Tu Musica, Tu Sabor (Your Music, Your Flavor) to customers, the newly updated Amazon Latin Music Store carries nearly 140,000 unique titles and brings both English-language and Spanish-language content to Amazon customers. The store features nine categories including, Latin Pop, Latin Rock, Regional Mexican, Tropical, Urban, World, Latin Children’s, Latin Christian and Latin Jazz along with 23 subcategories.

Amazon Signs Up Sony/BMG to Make It All Four

Steven Finch — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:46:36 +0000

AmazonÂ is getting serious about their new Mp3 Download Store. After last weeks announcement that they were adding DRM free tracks from the Warner catalog, they are now adding Sony/BMG to their collection.

That’s right, Amazon has just announced a partnership with Sony/BMG. This means Amazon MP3 Will Be the Only Retailer to Offer Customers DRM-free MP3 Downloads from All Four Major Music Labels. Im very interested to see where this takes the company in terms of their market share. I can see Amazon Mp3 continuing to grow and gaining more market share, but i dont think it will really be a serious contender to iTunes. If anything Amazon Mp3 helps Apple grow, because at the end of the day Apple has a complete package and the Mp3’s sold on Amazon need to go somewhere and most of the time it is on to an iPod.

Here are the views of other sites around the place about Amazons’ new partnership:

Music Business Models Will They Change in 2008?

Steven Finch — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:56:37 +0000

In the last few days I have been reading some great articles over at RWW on the music industry, where it is headed and how Apple could potentially lose its dominance. These articles have fueled great debates on the RWW site and here is my take on the whole music industry.

Having the Complete Package

Josh wrote a great article at RWW that basically talked about Apple and how they are slowly coming under fire from Amazon and Zune. I think the situation is very straight forward until someone really tries to shake up the market!

Apple currently has 70% of the portable music player market and approx 85% of the music download market. Apple additionally has a very strong brand awareness and loyalty. Apple are very smart at what they do and for companies who only offer part of their package, it will be very difficult for them to compete and actually grab any market presence. Im sure we will see companies like Amazon attempt to attack parts of the music market but if they succeed in any particular area (such as cut pricing of downloads and DRM free downloads), then Apple will just calculate the right times to cover the advances and offer equal services. At the end of the day Apple knows that they have brand loyalty like no other and services such as Amazon Mp3 in the long run will only help them sell more iPods or Macs, because these people who download have to put their music somewhere.

In terms of Zune they have been receiving some good reviews for their new product, however this is Microsoft we are talking about. Microsoft has long been serial monopolists and Zune is not going to change that fact. Apple have of course AAC files that can only be played on iPods and Microsoft have exactly the same with the Zune.

At present no one can challenge Apples dominance and I dont think anyone will challenge them for at least another 5 years. Microsoft with Zune have just launched a product and service exactly the same as Apple did years ago with the iPod and iTunes, there is no difference to me. Amazon however, have launched a service that was need, a service that offers DRM free music not via subscription and via a cut price. Amazon hit a small gap in the market that was needed, but does this mean they will get any where near iTunes? No chance in hell!!

Future of DRM

I predict that 2008 will be the year that all the big 4 (Sony BMG, Universal, Warner and EMI) start selling DRM free music more openly. Amazon has Warner on the books and iTunes has EMI already signed up with Warner to come on board very soon.

In 2007 there have been lots of experiments with the music business model, such as Radiohead and also Amie Street, but have they proved anything? Yes I think they have. The Amie Street business model of offering music low and then prices increase when the track becomes popular has proved so successful that Amazon has bought into the company. Radiohead proved that selling digitally on a website can be just as popular as selling on the huge iTunes.

Conclusions. Overall, I really think customers are willing to pay for good quality music, especially DRM free music that can be transported to any portable music player, but only at the right price! Im still not too sure if we have found the right price yet. This is mainly due to the big 4 wanting to make a good margin on their sales on iTunes, thus prices are currently high. I cant wait to see a service that skips all of the hassels and just offers a simple service that sells good quality mp3s DRM free at a price such as $0.50 per download.

What Needs to Happen to Break the Music Industry

Currently, I am CEO of a company which is entering the music space but focusing on music licensing and distribution. Hypothetically, if I had the resources and money to launch a product in the music industry that would compete with iTunes and Apple, I would do the following.

Digital music downloads need to have a copyright system in place that actually tracks who the music is sold to and if the music is transported between computers or players it just needs to be unlocked via a password or something similar.
Offer a DRM free music store in which the music can be transfered to any portable music player
Offer a reasonable price and optimize the transaction fee the third party takes.
Then offer other vertical services such as videos, games, ebooks and more.
Finally, move into horizontal integration, such as a revolutionary portable music player, online and satellite radio stations and many more ideas.

This is the only way I can see someone breaking the Apple dominance and taking at least some share of the music market. If you are a VC and would like to fund my idea, please get in touch with me! haha. I love a challenge!

Kindle Gets Crunched

Steven Finch — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:47:30 +0000

I tried to embed the show from Kyte.tv, but when this happened it would only show the most recent video on the Scoble Channel. How annoying! Anyways, here is the link to Arrington on the Kindle and it is weird to see Arrington with a sense of humour! haha.

Amazon Now Has 20 Percent To Give To Affiliates

Steven Finch — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:05:13 +0000

Amazon is now offering a very nice percent on their affiliate program for their new Mp3 service. Amazon is now offering 20 percent on downloads they bring to the site and that iTunes are only currently offering 5 percent. Amazon does have one of the largest affiliate programs out there, so it will be a great incentive for sites such as Last.fm to put new affiliate links on their artist profiles!

Amazon Download Store Finally Open

Steven Finch — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:16:40 +0000

After more than a year of speculation, The Amazon DRM-free download store Â has finally opened with an impressive 2,323,235 mp3’s available from 180,000 artists on 20,000 labels. All tracks are 256 kps mp3’s priced at 89 to 99 cents.

Included are thousands of tracks from Universal (more it appears than are available elsewhere) and virtually the entire EMI catalog including Radiohead and Pink Floyd. Missing are digital hold outs The Beatles and Bob Seger.

Leading independent labels offering their catalog of music for the first time DRM-free include Alligator, HighTone, Madacy, Sanctuary, Rounder, Righteous Babe, Sugar Hill, Trojan and Phillip Glass’ Orange Mountain.

Press Release