Re: Kindle media reviews sometimes a little bizarre

I dunno, Bill.  Your response seems pretty speculative, especially when you say that my 
analysis "merely  reflects your internal hopes," when you don't actually know what my 
internal hopes are, do you?  What if my internal hopes aren't to see the Kindle sell well, 
but to accurately assess what's going on in the ebook world right now?

You're perfectly correct, of course, when you say, "We don't know how well they're selling.  
We don't know how many Amazon has right now in their warehouses.  We don't know how 
many they pre-ordered."  

What we do know, though, is that people who ordered Kindles are receiving them on 
schedule (at least there are no posts on the Amazon website complaining about missed 
delivery dates), so we can conclude that Amazon has indeed been shipping devices. 

We can also observe, as you can confirm for yourself, that the sales ranks of Kindle 
editions rise and fall in the Kindle store, which is evidence that there are people out there 
with Kindles buying ebooks.

As far as early reviews are concerned, actual customer reviews by people who've received 
Kindles almost invariably give it four or five stars and have titles like "A few weeks in, and 
it's certainly not going to back to Amazon!" and "We need two," both posted today.  The 
only exception I've found in checking the newest customer reviews periodically was one 
titled "I returned mine: waiting for 'real' one" by Glenn Fleishman, the Seattle Times 
reviewer.  I'd say that one negative post by an actual purchaser is not exactly convincing 
evidence of a looming post-Christmas "anti-Amazon backlash."

As far as the Kindle being "a disappointing gadget of little real value," since Amazon has 
been giving positive and negative reviews, whether by actual purchasers or not, equal time 
and weight on their website from day one, one can hardly argue that buyers lacked the 
information to make informed decisions and hence will be disappointed when their 
expectations are not met.

What likelihood would you assign your scenario of Amazon trying to artificially discourage 
sales as opposed to the straightforward, commonplace business scenario that a company 
exists to make money, and it makes money by selling a product, so it accepts orders for 
that product unless it can't fill them? 

John 

--- In [email protected], Bill Janssen <bill@...> wrote:
>
> > On the day his column appeared (Dec. 1), Amazon's website carried
> > the following message: "Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is
> > temporarily sold out. Because we ship Kindles on a first-come,
> > first-served basis, please ORDER NOW to reserve your place in
> > line. Your Kindle will not arrive by December 25th."  Sounds to me
> > like they're actually selling in quantities greater than Amazon
> > anticipated.
> 
> Except that your analysis is based on no real data.  It merely
> reflects your internal hopes.  infostrategist, indeed!
> 
> We don't know how well they're selling.  We don't know how many Amazon
> has right now in their warehouses.  We don't know how many they
> pre-ordered.
> 
> One could equally well theorize that they're posting an artificial
> ship-by date to discourage sales, because they are afraid that too
> many pre-Christmas sales will result in an anti-Amazon backlash as
> customers realize how much they've spent for what Amazon is afraid
> they'll perceive as a disappointing gadget of little real value, based
> on the early reviews they're getting.  We just don't know.
> 
> Bill
>





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