As always, Seth Godin is a step ahead in understanding how product markets work and he is generous with his ideas. If I were Jeff Bezos, I’d pay attention. Godin’s underlying assumption is that whoever sells the most e-reader devices will control the publishing industry. So Amazon needs to drop the price of the Kindle and do whatever it takes to push the iPad out of the e-book reader market. He has some novel ideas such as:
Sign up to get a Kindle book of your choice every month for 12 months and get a free Kindle. Amazon presents you with ten book choices, and since the cost of delivering it is zero, there’s plenty of margin for all…
He has several more ideas so surf on over and check them out. It’s a smart, aggressive strategy. I hope Amazon is paying attention. I might add an idea or two of my own such as partnering with universities and textbook manufacturers.
What do you think? Is the Kindle going the way of the 8-track? Is Steve Jobs about to do it again?