Kindle’s Social Networking Features Sure Are Quiet, But They’re Not New
August 8, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Amazon added Twitter and Facebook sharing to the Kindle in 2010 and later added those features to its apps as well. Kindle.Amazon.com is a fairly bare-bones page “dedicated to making reading better by bringing readers together and by helping them to learn more from the books that they read. You can follow people of interest to you to see their Public Notes and reading activities, and review your books, highlights, and notes.” Note that Amazon is pretty adamant about not calling this a social networking site—or even giving it a title other than its web address.
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Also, it does not seem that Amazon is behind the buzz about the site. The company has not issued a press release or more casually mentioned the site on Facebook, for instance. Rather, former MySpace president Tom Anderson mentioned the site on Google+ yesterday (”It sorta looks like Amazon has just launched a social network”) and the “news” spread from there. (As blogger Phil Bradley pointed out, perhaps the most noteworthy thing here is that news actually spread from Google+ to Twitter.)
Competing e-reader makers have been a little chattier about social and sharing features. The new Kobo has the company’s social networking technology, Reading Life, built into it and the company used that as a major selling point at launch. When Barnes Noble (NYSE: BKS) released the new Nook, it said it would launch MyNook.com, through which users could access their libraries and see friends’ recommendations, by June—but that has not happened. http://www.mynook.com simply redirects to Barnes Noble’s homepage.
Why are Amazon and Barnes Noble so subdued about these features? I’ve asked both companies for comment and will update this post when I hear back. in the meantime, theories: In the case of MyNook.com, BN may simply have gotten delayed…or decided the effort isn’t worth it. (After all, there are a lot of social networking reading sites, like Goodreads, already.)
As for Amazon, it could be quietly building and testing its social networking presence in preparation for the rumored-slash-pretty-much-definitely-happening releases of two new Kindles and the Amazon tablet this fall—devices that might integrate social features more prominently.
By Laura Hazard Owen
@laurahazardowen
Aug 8, 2011 12:25 PM ET
Photo:
Corbis / Victor Habbick Visions
Posted In:
Media Publishing, Books, e-readers, Companies, Amazon, Kindle, barnes noble, kobo, nook
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Google+ could become the second-largest social network within a year
August 8, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Google+ is quickly rising up the ranks of social networks. 13% of U.S. adult online use the search giant’s latest foray into social networking, which launched June 29, according to a new survey by research firm YouGov PLC. That compares to 14% of U.S. online adults on MySpace, 18% on Twitter, 19% on LinkedIn and 71% on Facebook.
For now, consumers can join Google+ only by invitation, which figures to limit its growth until Google opens it up more broadly. However, the percentage of consumers who plan to begin using the social network within the next 12 months stands at 9%. If those numbers hold true and 16 million U.S. online adults join Google+, the social network will pass LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace to become the second-largest social networking site in the United States within the next 12 months, the report says.
The consumers most attracted to Google+ are relatively young, male and educated. The social network has three men for every two women (Facebook has one man for every 1.2 women). Additionally, 43% of Google+ users are between the ages of 18 and 29 (compared to 31% of Facebook users), 59% have a college degree (compared to 37% of Facebook users) and 48% are single (compared to 33% of Facebook users).
“Google+ is tracing a path similar to Facebook’s initial growth—building excitement in a core group of early adopters,” says Michael Nardis, head of YouGov Investment Products. “For Facebook, it was college students. For Google+ that path is young, educated, single men who are heavy Internet users.”
The survey also found that those early adopters are highly engaged. 45% said they read content on the site at least once a day. Only Facebook, at 62%, beat Google + on that account. 46% said they post a status update, share a link or create other content at last once a week. That’s slightly more than Twitter, at 42%.
As consumers increase the amount of time they spend on Google+, Facebook could potentially suffer. 30% of Facebook users who already use Google+ said they plan to cut down the amount of time they spend on Facebook this year.
YouGov conducted the online survey of 1,003 adults from July 29 to Aug. 2.
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