Sunday, October 31, 2010

'Dear Santa: Not TXTING You This Year; Get This App Please'


'Dear Santa: Not TXTING You This Year; Get This App Please'

Computerworld reported that 65% of the Fortune 500 companies are at one stage or another of deploying iPad apps,

While Mygadgetnews.com quotes Apple's Steve Jobs as saying “We haven't pushed [the iPad] real hard in business yet, and it is being grabbed out of our hands.” 

Apps are popping up everywhere in business, whether they show up on the Mercedes Benz showroom floor in the hands of a salesperson or at the kitchen table with Mom, Dad and the kids crowded around the iPad screen to slap “virtual stickers” on items the kids want from Toys R Us.

Back- office applications are sprouting like mushrooms as well.  For example,  an app coming Nov. 3 in the fashion industry will aid buyers who can use the iPad to select items that will become tomorrow's clothing musts.

Three days ago, Toys R Us launched its Great Big Christmas Book app for the iPad.  It is one of a growing number of apps designed to get the iPad right in between the shopper and the seller to boost sales and help people find the toys they want more easily.

Only 10 buyers had rated the app to date, giving it a collective four stars out of fun. One reviewer loves the app for simplifying shopping, another handed the iPad and app to her kid for efficient “wish list” trimming.

The app enables parents to essentially “register” their kid's desires, effectively copying relatives and friends on each child's hearts desires to coordinate things. Kids can slap “virtual stickers” on their choices on the iPad for, they hope, happy “surprises” on Christmas morn.

Here's how Toys R Us promotes the app in the Apple Store:

Discover, share, have fun! This iPad app is going to make holiday shopping a lot easier on Santa—and it’s fun for your kids, too. Browse easily through hundreds of the hottest holiday toys including Toy Story 3, Hot Wheels, Nerf, Nintendo, Beyblade, Xbox, LEGO, Fisher Price in a new, immersive shopping experience.

Using virtual stickers, kids add the items they’d be most excited to see under the tree to a special list. It even features a separate view for parents of organized lists they can share with family and friends via email, SMS or the Toys”R”Us Wish List. In addition, there is a dedicated section for savings and a store locator making it easy to find the best deals. Start your Christmas shopping today.

The categories within the Toys"R"Us App experience include: Trains, Preschool, Action Figures, Arts & Crafts, Baby Toys, Bikes, Scooters, Books, Music & DVDs, Build Sets, Dolls, Electronics, Board Games, Puzzles, Preschool, Pretend Play, Vehicles & Remote control, Video Games
 
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txting 2d

'Dear Santa: Not TXTING You This Year; Get This App Please'

Computerworld reported that 65% of the Fortune 500 companies are at one stage or another of deploying iPad apps
are either seriously thinking about or already planning iPad apps to boost sales or improve efficiency and cut costs.

While Mygadgetnews.com quotes Apple's Steve Jobs as saying “We haven't pushed [the iPad] real hard in business yet, and it is being grabbed out of our hands.” http://mygadgetnews.com/2010/10/31/apples-ipad-goes-corporate/

Apps are popping up everywhere in business, whether they show up on the Mercedes Benz showroom floor in the hands of a salesperson or at the kitchen table with Mom, Dad and the kids crowded around the iPad screen to slap “virtual stickers” on items the kids want from Toys R Us.

Back-applications are sprouting like mushrooms as well in the fashion industry, where buyers can use the iPad to select items that will become tomorrow's clothing musts.

Three days ago, Toys R Us launched its Great Big Christmas Book app for the iPad. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toys-r-us/id399532778?mt=8# It is one of a growing number of apps designed to get the iPad right in between the shopper and the seller to boost sales and help people find the toys they want more easily.

Only 10 buyers had rated the app to date, giving it a collective four stars out of fun. One reviewer loves the app for simplifying shopping, another handed the iPad and app to her kid for efficient “wish list” trimming.

The app enables parents to essentially “register” their kid's desires, effectively copying relatives and friends on each child's hearts desires to coordinate things. Kids can slap “virtual stickers” on their choices on the iPad for, they hope, happy “surprises” on Christmas morn.

Here's how Toys R Us promotes the app in the Apple Store:


Discover, share, have fun! This iPad app is going to make holiday shopping a lot easier on Santa—and it’s fun for your kids, too. Browse easily through hundreds of the hottest holiday toys including Toy Story 3, Hot Wheels, Nerf, Nintendo, Beyblade, Xbox, LEGO, Fisher Price in a new, immersive shopping experience.

Using virtual stickers, kids add the items they’d be most excited to see under the tree to a special list. It even features a separate view for parents of organized lists they can share with family and friends via email, SMS or the Toys”R”Us Wish List. In addition, there is a dedicated section for savings and a store locator making it easy to find the best deals. Start your Christmas shopping today.

The categories within the Toys"R"Us App experience include: Trains, Preschool, Action Figures, Arts & Crafts, Baby Toys, Bikes, Scooters, Books, Music & DVDs, Build Sets, Dolls, Electronics, Board Games, Puzzles, Preschool, Pretend Play, Vehicles & Remote control, Video Games
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Newsweek App for iPad Shows The Complexity of Selling Magazines & Newspapers To E-Reading Customers

Newsweek App for iPad Shows The Complexity of Selling Magazines & Newspapers To E-Reading Customers



Newsweek Magazine and Apple sorted out subscription issues (at least some of them) and the magazine is available via an app for the iPad, replete with color photos, fancy charts and words crafted by first class journalists.

You can also get Newsweek directly in the Amazon Kindle store, or you can use the Windowshop iPad app (which Planet iPad detailed here last week) inside the Apple Store to buy the subscription from inside the Kindle Store.  It's easy to get lost in all of this.

The Apple app lets people subscribe to the digital magazine, access Newsweek’s current web content at no cost, customize a “landing page” to present personal topics and stories up front when when you open the app, “browse stunning full-screen photo galleries,” and share articles and galleries on Facebook and Twitter.

If you subscribe in the Kindle Store, however, you can only read the magazine in black and white on your Amazon Kindle. And that's the way it is--for the moment. 

Those simply presented bullet points in the Apple apps store belie the tangled convolutions being pounded out between various publishers, Apple and also Amazon and its Kindle Store. Every item is a complex battleground among giant corporations.

Apple's approach seems to be to want to control subscriptions via its apps, including controlling the cash flow and—more importantly, customer demographics—of readers. This is a major problem for magazine publishers.  The real money in magazines comes from advertising, but subscription payments are an important cash stream.

However, magazines live or die on their demographics. They need hard numbers to show to advertisers to make the case for buying an ad. Detailed publishers' statements break down the gender and age grouping of readers, income levels, geographic locations, and every scrap of marketing data that can be collected.

Time Magazine sales reps compare and contrast themselves to Newsweek.  Newsweek's ad sales people plead in advertiser's offices that their numbers are better.  The bottom line of who makes the sale in tighter economic times is who has the best numbers for the particular advertiser. Proctor and Gamble's target audience for Downy fabric softener is different from its target for Pampers diapers, and certainly quite different from the target market for, say, Mercedes Benz or Lexus.  "Show me the data and maybe I'll show you the money" is what advertisers have in mind.

So far, Apple doesn't seem to want to dole out that data on in-app subscriptions.

Meantime, over at Amazon, similar knotty issues are on the table, not the least of which is: color photos, graphics and charts.

To date, people who subscribe to Newsweek via the Kindle Store can only read it on their Kindles.  Popular “Kindle for...” apps have expanded the ebook market beyond Kindle owners to those who may not have a Kindle, but do have an iPad, or iPhone, or Android-based device.  Or some of those devices.  Or all of them.  That portability has not been extended to newspapers, magazines and blogs sold in the Kindle Store.

That's changing, according to a recent announcement by the Amazon Kindle Team in the quiet corner of an Amazon forum called “Coming Soon For Kindle.” Planet iPad reported on that announcement last week.

So iPad users who thought the Apple vs. Amazon vs. publishers wrangle was complicated might as well avert their eyes on this one.  It will get sorted out, of course.  Just how it sorts, when and by whom, and who gets the money and controls the demographic data remains to be seen.


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REPURPOSE NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

Amazon Promises Apps 'Later' This Year to Deliver Newspapers and Magazines From the Kindle Store To Devices Beyond the Kindle.

Magazines and newspapers are coming to Kindle Store subscribers who don't have Kindles.

Up until now, people who read newspapers, magazines and blogs like Kindle Nation Daily on their Amazon Kindle have been limited to reading their purchases on their Kindle--only.   Ever since the apps for books that expand reading device alternatives (Kindle for PC, iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry) appeared, there has been an unfilled service gap:   reading periodicals on a device other than the Kindle.  

That's going to change, the Amazon Kindle Team revealed recently in a forum called "Coming Soon For The Kindle."   The team made another promise in the same announcement:  That Kindle owners will be able to start lending their ebooks to others before the end of the year.

Both announcements are the stuff of major press releases, yet they came in the relatively obscure space of a small forum tucked inside the Amazon Kindle infrastructure.


Of the more than 460 comments in the forum by Kindle Store customers, nearly all of the discussion focuses on lending books and the proposed limitations outlined in the team statement.

Newspapers and magazines present issues much broader than those faced with the once-monumental-enough task of turning over 700,000 books (and growing fast) into ebooks. The vast space of two printed newspaper pages held wide give publishers huge opportunities for graphic display of information and enhancement with color photographs.  Magazines make great use of their slick paper and 8 by 10 inch acreage to present quality color photos and highly detailed charts.

Moving all that color and chart detail into the black and white e-ink on pale gray screen format cause all the periodicals sold on Amazon to add notes on their pages that photos and charts are not included.    Indeed, not all of the text of any given issue of a newspaper or magazine is included in the Kindle version.  (See notes on individual periodicals about this.)


But what's going to happen when a Kindle for PC or Kindle for iPad can suddenly see the New York Times or, for that matter, Playboy Magazine?

The Amazon Kindle Team's "heads up" in the “Coming Soon For the Kindle” forum did not mention the fate of more than 10,000 blogs now on sale in the Kindle Store.  Nor did they hint at what Amazon has in development to respond to Color Nooks and iPads, all of which figure in the ereader future of nearly every periodical.

“Our vision is Buy Once, Read Everywhere, and we're excited to make this possible for Kindle periodicals in the same way that it works now for Kindle books,” the team said. “More details when we launch this in the coming weeks.” 

Kindle owners, who seem to almost universally love their Kindles and the company that makes them, have been speculating and clamoring for a "Super Kindle" with all the flash, dash, color and daring to arrive and trounce the competition. 

Is the addition of apps to push colorful newspapers and magazines to Kindle owners' secondary devices a hint that something else is coming?  
Here is the full text Kindle Team announcement in the forum:

“We wanted to let you know about two new features coming soon.

“First, we are making Kindle newspapers and magazines readable on our free Kindle apps, so you can always read Kindle periodicals even if you don't have your Kindle with you or don't yet own a Kindle. In the coming weeks, many newspapers and magazines will be available on our Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, and then we'll be adding this functionality to Kindle for Android and our other apps down the road.

“Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

“We will post to the forum later this year when these features are available.”





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Saturday, October 30, 2010

iPad and RaceMate App Pinpoint Runners At Tomorrow's Marine Corps Marathon, Set To Start In Spite of Recent Shootings


 By Tom Dulaney, Editor in Chief

The iPad joins a field of some 30,00 runners in its first Marine Corp Marathon tomorrow, thanks to an app from RaceMate.

The app tracks runners by following their GPS enabled smartphones and feeding locations into the developer's system and then back down to friends and supporters to follow along with their iPad or iPhone.  Race organizers expect nearly half of the runners will have smartphones on board during the race.

3G iPads or users close to a Wi-Fi hot spot will be able to see exactly where their runner is on the race route at any time.  Runners' locations will be updated every time they advance about 10 meters, says Barg Upender, CEO of Mobomo, developer of RaceMate.

RaceMate is available for $1.99.  An upgrade to let an observer track multiple runners costs $2.99, according to a report in USA Today.


Runners are literally “under the gun,” or threat of it, and organizers have beefed up security. In recent weeks, an unknown shooter used a high velocity rifle to fire some 7 shots at the Pentagon on October 19. Two days earlier, shots were reportedly fired by the same rifle at the Marine Corps Museum in Triangle, VA, some 32 miles southwest of Washington. Again, in the early morning ours this Tuesday, the museum of shot at once more.

The race coincides with the 2,500th anniversary of the first marathon, when Phidippides ran 36 miles from Athens to Sparta, helping the outnumbered Athenians beat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

RaceMate is slated to be on hand for other major races, including the New York marathon.  “We are in early beta of a 'Command and Control' version of the app specifically designed for the massive screen real estate and form factor of the iPad,” the FAQ page for RaceMate says.

The RaceMate app is $1.99 in the iStore. RaceMate v2.1 is a “massive upgrade” from version 1.0, the company says. Instructions on the web site tell runners how to enter their race registration information into the system The instructions explains how friends and supporters can use their iPads or iPhones to track their runner. Both the runner and the supporters have to download the app to enable tracking.

The app features maps to pinpoint a runner's location. The Marine Corp Marathon is an excellent event for runners' supporters to watch the action. There are a number of places where the race route loops around, giving observers a chance to hotfoot it from point to point to see—and photograph or video—their runner several times.

USA Today reported on RaceMate and the marathon earlier last month.
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Friday, October 29, 2010

Stephen King Knocked Out Kindle Exclusive Novella Ur In 3 Days & Earned $80K On It

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg's report for the Wall Street Journal today gives details of an interview with author Stephen King on the subject of ebooks, King's use of them, and a peek at his ebook earnings.

The impressive news:  King worked on his ebook Ur for three days and made $80,000 from selling it on Amazon. At $3.19, even at the standard 35% royalty Amazon Digital Text Publishing authors got at the time, that factors out to just under 80,000 readers who bought the book.

Ur was written exclusively for the Kindle and features as a “character” a hot pink Kindle ebook reader with “King”-sized supernatural apps. Back in February 2009, only those "insiders" who owned a Kindle could read it—the rest of the world had to do without. Now, by way of apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android, PC and such, Ur can reach millions of ebook readers without Kindles. Ur is also available in an audio edition for $10.19 and an instant-gratification Audible Edition edition at $7.87.
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Daily Planet iPad Free Book Alert, Friday, October 29: 5 Brand New Titles Top Our Free Book Listings, plus ... a treasure trove of niche listings about military history, naval affairs, and politics from Nimble Books (Today's Sponsor), and over 100 other fully updated free Kindle Store ebook listings to read on your iPad

As with so many subgenres and topics of niche interest in this new age of digital publishing, we could probably file today's sponsorship under "Not for Everyone, But Perfect for Some."


Readers who are deeply interested in particular genres and subgenres of books sometimes find that the selection of Kindle titles in their niche is still more limited than they would like.  While modern bestsellers are available in most genres, there are still a lot of holes in the backlist and in the depth of coverage in subgenres. For example, in the science fiction genre, Larry Niven's relatively recent bestseller Ringworld's Children is available for the iPad, but the first three volumes of the series, including the must-have classic Ringworld, are not.  The same pattern can be found in many other genres.

Nimble Books is a publisher that is addressing this problem for readers who enjoy books about military history, naval affairs, and politics.  A recent post about a Nimble book on international politics, Blood on our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, helped connect that book with many readers.  This has inspired Nimble to try something different which is, frankly, an experiment: neither Nimble nor I have any idea whether this will work! But we think it's worth the risk: if it helps a few Planet iPad citizens find books that interest us, we will discover not just one, but an ample backlist of worthwhile new titles in our areas of special interest. And for those of us who aren't interested, all we have to do is scroll down to today's latest additions to our Planet iPad Daily Free Book listings....

But first, a word from ... Today's Sponsor

Accordingly, this sponsorship shines the spotlight on over 30 Nimble Books titles on military, naval, and political topics ranging from battleships, torpedo boats, and Napoleonic history to aviation, current affairs, and strategy.  

Some of Nimble's bestsellers in these areas include 

Give Nimble for iPad a whirl, and let us know what you think! 
Each day's list is sponsored by one paid title, author, or publisher. We encourage you to support our sponsors and thank you for considering them. 

Authors, Publishers, Bloggers, and iPad Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information.


October's Free Contemporary Titles in the Kindle Store 

Click here for a separate listing of free and bargain erotica titles for your iPad.
Spinning Forward
By: Terri DuLong
Added: 10/29/2010 4:00:54am
Cool Beans: A Maya Davis Novel
By: Erynn Mangum
Added: 10/29/2010 4:00:54am
Half Past Dead
By: Zoe Archer
Added: 10/29/2010 4:00:54am
Dancing In The Lowcountry
By: James Villas
Added: 10/29/2010 4:00:54am
Cross Fire-Free Preview: The First 30 Chapters
By: James Patterson
Added: 10/27/2010 4:00:50am
Unti James Novella
By:
Added: 10/27/2010 4:00:50am
Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be
By: Kary Oberbrunner
Added: 10/25/2010 2:01:09pm
Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul
By: Zondervan
Added: 10/25/2010 2:01:09pm
The Truth About Starting a Business
By: Bruce Barringer
Added: 10/25/2010 4:01:09am
How Netflix Produces Happy Endings
By: New Word City
Added: 10/25/2010 4:01:09am
The Truth About Public Speaking: The Essential Truths in 20 Minutes
By: James O'Rourke
Added: 10/25/2010 4:01:09am
The Holy Bible English Standard Version (ESV)
By: Crossway Bibles
Added: 10/21/2010 2:01:19pm
Spy Killer
By: L. Ron Hubbard
Added: 10/19/2010 4:01:12am
Preacher Creature Strikes on Sunday
By: Mike Thaler
Added: 10/18/2010 2:01:05pm
Never Blame the Umpire
By: Gene Fehler
Added: 10/18/2010 2:01:05pm
The Choice (Lancaster County Secrets, Book 1)
By: Suzanne Woods Fisher
Added: 10/18/2010 4:01:07am
Mozart's Sister
By: Nancy Moser
Added: 10/18/2010 4:01:07am
Chinatown Beat
By: Henry Chang
Added: 10/16/2010 2:01:04pm
Every Word (A Free Game for Kindle)
By: Amazon Digital Services
Added: 10/15/2010 2:01:09pm
Emotions: Freedom from Anger, Jealousy & Fear
By: Osho
Added: 10/15/2010 4:01:12am
An Unwanted Hunger
By: Ciana Stone
Added: 10/15/2010 4:01:12am
Quiet As They Come (Free Story for Kindle)
By: Angie Chau
Added: 10/13/2010 4:01:25am
Relentless (Dominion Trilogy #1)
By: Robin Parrish
Added: 10/11/2010 8:17:57am
Tahn: A Novel
By: L. A. Kelly
Added: 10/11/2010 8:17:57am
Sin's Daughter
By: Eve Silver
Added: 10/09/2010 4:01:20am
Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery
By: James R. Benn
Added: 10/08/2010 4:01:14am
The Holy Bible: HCSB Digital Text Edition
By: B&H Publishing Group
Added: 10/07/2010 4:01:07am
Publish on Amazon Kindle [and iPad] with the Digital Text Platform
By: Amazon.com
Added: 10/05/2010 4:01:23am
Thoughts on The Promise and Darkness On The Edge Of Town
By: Bruce Springsteen
Added: 10/03/2010 2:01:31pm
The DNA of Relationships
By: Gary Smalley
Added: 10/03/2010 4:01:24am
The Unsuspecting Mage (The Morcyth Saga Book One)
By: Brian S. Pratt
Added: 10/01/2010 2:01:18pm
Shatter (The Children of Man)
By: Elizabeth C. Mock
Added: 10/01/2010 2:01:18pm
Arousing Love
By: M. H. Strom
Added: 10/01/2010 2:01:18pm
Woman of Sin
By: Debra Diaz
Added: 10/01/2010 2:01:18pm
Outlander: with Bonus Content
By: Diana Gabaldon
Added: 10/01/2010 4:01:02am

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