Weekly Recap – September 3, 2010
The Week in News Affecting Rights, Royalties, Royalty Software, or Rights Management for September 2, 2010:
Sony steps it’s e-reader game up, while Kindle pulls ahead in web searches for e-readers. And one of the most popular tweets of the week.
Sony’s Potential to Change the e-Book World
Kindle Leads As eReader Internet Searches Are Up
From Twitter: Print isn’t Dead This Week
Sony’s latest e-readers: Understanding the trade-offs and global strategy
Sony has been rolling out a line of revamped e-readers, to compete with Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but the real win for Sony will be in places like Russia, Brazil and China. Why? Sony’s brand carries a lot of weight. And Sony has the retail partnerships that wrap around the globe. Meanwhile, Amazon and Barnes & Noble will be hard-pressed to replicate Sony’s global reach. If the global trend is to move away from paper to bits of data the e-reader market worldwide is just beginning. Sony can be everywhere its primary rivals can’t. Meanwhile, Sony’s real rivals—companies like Samsung—don’t have e-readers or the content that needs to ride shotgun. Sony’s store is comparable to the others and has seen its 10 millionth book download.
Kindle Leads As eReader Internet Searches Are Up
According to Experian’s Hitwise UK, generic searches for eReaders have doubled in the last year.
Kindle is leading the pack, as Kindle-related searches have increased eight times. Robin Goad, Research Director at Hitwise UK explains more in his blog: “What’s interesting to note from the above chart is the rise in popularity of Kindle-related search terms against other branded terms. In the last month searches for Kindles have never been higher. Amazon’s product is pulling away from the competition, where previously the volume of searches has been roughly even between Kindles and other e-readers.”
Hitwise also found that branded search terms are more common than generic eReader search terms. Goad wrote: “Searches for branded terms search as ‘sony reader’ and ‘amazon kindle’ have always been more popular than ‘ebook’.”
From Twitter: Print isn’t Dead This Week
And finally, what’s popular on Twitter this week:
A Tweet from author Jason Pinter regarding the first week sales of Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay has been one of the most commented upon and shared in the book world this week. Mockingjay has sold 450,000 copies since its August 24th release, for an average of 45,000 books sold per day.
