Comments on: Why is the U.S. State Department paying Amazon $16.5 million for Kindles? http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/ The economics of digital content Tue, 21 May 2013 07:31:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: WTFSERIOUSLY? http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-104285 Fri, 15 Jun 2012 22:45:33 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-104285 WHY is this needed?! Wouldn’t this money be better spent on health care? Soup kitchens? Homeless shelters?
WTF?

]]> By: Laura Hazard Owen http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103737 Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:57:55 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103737 Hi all, here’s a follow-up post including an interview with the State Department. Questions remain, as you’ll see: http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/13/state-department-speaks-out-on-amazon-kindle-deal/

]]> By: Diana http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103500 Wed, 13 Jun 2012 02:05:27 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103500 example of the kindle’s text to speech

sounds just like the text to speech cat cartoons

not that great

]]> By: Garry Martin http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103445 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:08:11 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103445 Great to see our tax dollars at work! complete madness…to add to this there are many better and cheaper products available. If you don’t think Amazon make money on Kindles, think again. Working with the original design manufacturers (ODM)in Asia I know that the cost to produce these devices is about 30% or less of retail. Sounds like another leg up for Amazon (their slush fund must be paying well!). Bezos is very smart and knows how to get the deals done…2nd question why is the government involved in this in the first place. Also the Classic out of copyright titles that could be distributed are available ‘free of charge’ by most eBookstores….why would the Government pay for them. Finally…We have a ‘white label’ ebookstore platform which many major brands utilize throughout the world that would work perfectly for this project at a fraction of the price! In fact already doing similar in Singapore for Chinese who are learning English.
http://www.mobcast.co.uk

]]> By: kriskleindienst http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103434 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:29:42 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103434 Aside from this being completely disturbing and an outrageous Orwellian move, what about the content? Wouldn’t this mean that content also comes from Amazon? The company known for blatantly manipulating that content and access to it?

]]> By: K http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103382 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:54:28 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103382 Ummm… educational books can be very expensive. Working with Estimate 2 in this blog post:

Preloaded books: 50
Average price/book: $10
Total devices in 5 years: 35,000 (7,000/yr)

Total worth of books: $17.5mil (50 books x $10 x 35,000 kindles)

That’s already worth more than the contract itself. Say the books are cheaper on average by half (so @ $5/book), that is still $8.75mil (approx. half of the contract).

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with choosing the best eReader available out there. Plus, it is really the only one that fits their needs. For those who are Apple fans, well, they needed an eReader, not a tablet and iPads are simply terrible for reading. I don’t think it’s a matter of the government being biased an would only support Amazon. It’s a matter of practicality.

(Side note: No, it’s not ok for Apple and the publishers to gang up and make us pay high prices for our ebooks, so the government did the right thing for cracking down on them. However, whether they would feel the necessity to do so if not for Amazon being persistent about the issue, that is unknown. Yes, it’s not nice for Amazon to just stop selling certain publisher’s titles when this first came out, but I don’t see how that’s different from us having the freedom to protest and demonstrate.)

]]> By: Laura Hazard Owen http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103358 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:37:31 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103358 Hi Doug, I’ve added a few clarifications released by the State Department to NextGov (see above) but am still waiting on a bunch of material from them — including, hopefully, some more public documents on the deliverables, the titles that will be preloaded on the Kindles, etc. I will update this post or write a new one when I have more information.

]]> By: Doug Wenzel http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103274 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:09:58 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103274 Keep in mind that phrase in the contract “pushing serialized content to the Kindles regularly.” That’s the key value Amazon has to provide. Also, if you or I buy a retail Kindle; for Amazon, that’s either a loss-leader, or a barely profitable transaction that buys them a future revenue stream in my e-book and other amazon.com purchases.

That’s not the case here. All the future revenue is in the additional value of the contract. It’s therefore very difficult to evaluate this contract, since the deliverables are ill-defined in what little has been made public.

]]> By: Sam P http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103191 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 09:32:11 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103191 Note the requirement: “International 3G”. B&N doesn’t even have a 3G capable Nook anymore, only the first generation with the touch LCD had 3G as an option.

]]> By: jrmacclure http://paidcontent.org/2012/06/11/why-the-u-s-state-department-is-paying-amazon-16-5-million-for-kindles/#comment-103188 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 09:27:42 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=211201#comment-103188 Since you have NO IDEA how much they are paying per device or how much that are paying for the books that are being included, let’s just say that is… stupid.

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