‘Is the Kindle destined for the Sky Mall?’ Six keep-ahead strategies for Amazon—from frog design VP

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By David Rothman

How can Amazon’s Kindle side keep ahead of rivals?

Psst! I’d rather that Jeff Bezos not find out how until he promises to do the ePub standard. And even then I have issues, since I don’t want any one company to dominate e-bookdom.

Rudely, however, Robert Fabricant, VP of Creative at frog design, is out with advice anyway. Here are Fabricant’s six strategies as listed in his Fast Company item:

“1. The TiVo Strategy: Own a Killer Feature…

2. The iTunes Strategy: Own the Library…

3. The Wii Strategy: Own the Device…

4. The App Store Strategy: Own the Marketplace…

5. The MySpace Strategy: Own the Community…”

Fabricant’s less-than-consumer-friendly ‘tude toward Amazon’s 1984 debacle: “…For all the hand-wringing about ‘Big Brother,’ it is easy to forget that physical books walk, too. When was the last time you went to your bookshelf to look for a book and couldn’t find it? Try going back to a bookstore to explain that they should give you a new copy of a misplaced book because you own the ‘lifetime rights’ to the book…” Jeeze. Talk about a tone-deaf business guy! Good on Jeff Bezos for ignoring such rationalizations. Amazon did a bad. That’s it, and we’ll hope it doesn’t repeat the mistake.

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