I was given an Amazon Kindle at the end of November and ever since have been a big and increasly growing, Kindle and Amazon fan. The device works. Its as simple as that. It doesnt pretend to be anything it isnt and does everything it needs to. The ebook purchasing process is slick and even software updates were handled as well as I’ve ever seen. Being an Android user I have felt the pain of going through poorly managed software updates and was extremely impressed by how Amazon handled their software update without a hitch.
To my surprise, my Kindle broke. I turn on the device and found that the screen was stuck showing a distorted screen saver. Seriously disappointed that my much beloved device was broken, I went on Amazon’s website to see what I could do to resolve the issue. As I expected there was lots of information that was easy to find and so I tried a few different things but none of them resolved the issue.
Read more »
Google+ is receving some very positive reports and user numbers are reportedly already well above 10m but I feel Google is missing a very obvious trick that would give it a significant differentiator.
I’ve been trailing RockMelt, a Chromium based browser that has Facebook integration. Its far from the finished article but is a big step forward in making the whole web social rather that users having to be on the facebook website in order to share and interact with friends.
Google could and should produce an extension for their Chrome browser that incorporates their sexy new black bar into the browser with a few extra Google+ functions. A share button that posts the site you are currently viewing without having to leave it. The ability to post to Stream, again without leaving the page you are currently on.
If rumours are to be believed, Facebook will today launch a service that integrates a video chat function in an attempt to further itself from Google who took a big step towards facebook this month by launching Google+.
My initial thoughts:
Most people use facebook in 2 main ways. To stay in contact with your real friends & family and to stalk old friends they may have lost touch with e.g. people you used to go to school with. This will significantly limit the amount of users who want to video chat to each other as its only the former who are likely to use the service.
On the consumer / user side its difficult to see what revenue this could bring in other than a cut of any additional revenue Skype get from an increase in users or calls etc
The real benefit of this solution could be for companies that use Facebook to interact with their customers. This new functionality enables the customer to chat to customer care or sales teams without any significant investment in the company’s infrastructure. Video could be helpful for technical issues e.g. someone having issues with a mobile phone or tablet, they could show the customer care agent exactly whats on screen then allowing the agent to talk them through and demonstrate via video link, ways to resolve their issue. This could be a big money spinner for Facebook and encourage companies of all sizes to sign up to using Facebook as another way to engage with customers.
Down the line we could see:
- Facebook accounts coming with skype phone numbers
- The Facebook iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps all having VOIP and Video chat capabilies built in.
- It could lead the way to a future VOIP (Skype based) Facebook phone but that would be a long way off and less likely.
Mobile | Chris Jackson | July 20, 2011 | 
Comments (0) 
