| I had two rather interesting news stories in my | | | | advertising). Then MagCloud will print and bind it in |
| email this morning. | | | | very high quality, in whatever quantities you want |
| - From the WSJ: Amazon's Kindle 2 Improves the | | | | (even one at a time), and send it directly to your |
| Good, Leaves Out the Bad | | | | readers. |
| - From BNET.com: HP's MagCloud: The Greatest, | | | | I'm sure it's a remarkable technical achievement, |
| or Dumbest, Idea Ever | | | | but who cares? To me, MagCloud, is like a |
| The Kindle | | | | web-enabled buggy whip. Being in the cloud does |
| We all know what the Kindle is. Amazon now has | | | | not automatically make something a relevant or |
| over 250,000 books, newspapers and magazines | | | | useful service. |
| you can wirelessly download to their digital reader. | | | | Print on demand is dead |
| After years of product failures (remember the | | | | Except for limited niches, the idea of print on |
| RocketBook?); it appears that the age of the | | | | demand is an old idea that has come and gone. |
| digital reader is finally here. You can argue about | | | | MagCloud is a solution to a problem that few |
| the Kindle's price point ($359) and its design | | | | people are trying to solve. |
| features (no backlit screen); but you can't argue | | | | The biggest challenge facing newspapers and |
| about its relevancy. | | | | magazines today is not finding more efficient |
| The entire concept of media delivery is changing. | | | | ways to produce physical documents. Their |
| The San Francisco Chronicle is about to go out of | | | | challenge is to find ways to create robust online |
| business, Philadelphia no longer has a daily paper, | | | | revenue streams that can fund their editorial |
| and the Tribune Company is in bankruptcy. The | | | | departments and content creation. |
| Kindle is one of many innovative responses to the | | | | Are they just trying to sell more ink? |
| new realities of information aggregation and | | | | It is remarkable, that a company as innovative as |
| distribution. | | | | HP would dedicate so many resources developing |
| HP's MagCloud | | | | MagCloud. Or maybe it's just a round-about way |
| MagCloud, on the other hand, is much less well | | | | to sell more HP inks. I don't know. But if you want |
| known. The idea is pretty simple. HP provides a | | | | to live in the Cloud - you better have something |
| highly feature rich online environment in which you | | | | more substantial to support you. |
| can create your own magazine (with or without | | | | |