2009 Prediction I: Webcam for Kindle?
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2009 is finally here, and one can’t help but speculate the changes that we may see with the Kindle. As you probably know by now, Kindle 2.0 is going to be released sometime between March – August 2009. Kindle 1.0 was a great device, and those who have had a chance to use it would tell you just that. But in order for Amazon to build the next iPod, Kindle has to pack in more features.
In order to build the great next device, companies need to create an ecosystem around their products that engages users and keeps them coming back for more. These days it’s not enough to just have a great product (e.g. Sony Reader). You need to have:
- a marketplace for your product
- a community to get your customers engaged
- an independent accessory market
I will go into explaining the above items in another post, but the concept is very simple. You need to find ways to attract and retain customers. I strongly believe that Amazon will need to develop a social community around the Kindle to get the Kindle users involved. Think about it. A community that would allow you to share knowledge with other Kindle users and even share your very own content (Scribd comes to mind here). But I am thinking a bit bigger here. What if you could put your thoughts in video without having to carry a video camera? How about being able to record book reviews in video on your Kindle? YouTube is nice but there is a lot of noise there.
Having a web-cam on the Kindle could help here. But I am not so sure Amazon will be adding it in the future. In truth, you can use one of those portable web-cams and attach it to your Kindle. It’s not going to be as convenient as having a built-in web-cam but it works. And let’s not forget that folks feel uneasy about any feature that would increase the price of the second generation Kindle. One can still dream though…
Your take: does it make sense for Amazon to add a built-in web-cam to the Kindle? How about your very own predictions?
