For digital storytellers, the world is about to get a whole lot more interesting. For content consumers–which is pretty much all of us–there’s a chance things could actually start to fall into place.
There’s a movement underway to shift storage from devices to the cloud. There are a number of reasons for this, but the fundamental driver is the massive growth in both the volume of content we each expect to have at our fingertips and the size of the files that HD videos and RAW photos generate.
So the enthusiasm from both the technical folks and the marketing folks to herald the coming of the cloud is pretty much a lock.
But what Amazon has figured out–and is implementing with prescient timing–is that the cloud alone is not enough to solve the blur of data that is swamping our devices and our digital lives. What consumers want is a Curated Cloud, and that’s what the Kindle Fire delivers.
If Amazon gets it right, we could be shifting from a hardware-centric world to a new phase in the evolution of the web, where content moves to center stage.
With a price of $199, the new 7-inch device is poised to be THE consumer electronics hit of the holiday season. Amazon’s powerful lead in the e-book business, where it holds a commanding 80% market share, is complemented by the video-streaming service that Amazon has built into its annual $79 Amazon Prime subscription service. Prime video will now give Netflix a serious competitor. As of now, Netflix has the larger collection, claiming 51,000 titles for streaming. Today, Amazon has 11,000 titles. But Netflix is about to lose Starz, which includes Sony and Disney films. And Amazon just announced deals with Fox and CBS. Expect Amazon to move aggressively to land more video content deals.