Brian Feener

There’s a new e-book reader coming out from Amazon called “Kindle.” It has a standard QWERTY keyboard, a good sized screen, and probably pretty good for what it is. Yet, I’m not sold that this is going to work. Yes, Amazon sold-out in the first week, but if I had a limited run, a major press-conference, a Newsweek article, one of the most visited websites on the internet and every newspaper and tech blog in the country covering my product, I’d sell out too.

E-books and readers have been around for about 10 years. The reason that they never caught on is because no one was able to supply the format with enough titles to make it interesting. But, even now with enough books to read, there is going to be a problem with ever making a real dent in the market.

Top 4 reasons Kindle isn’t going to gain significant market share:

• It’s $400.
• It’s a single-use device - a.k.a. The Espresso Machine Prinicple
• Limited ownership
• Necessity is the mother of invention.

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Where does your website fit into your business?

Is it the number one touchpoint for your customers, another piece to your marketing puzzle, or the entire business?

For the service-based companies, the problem is that there is no “ideal” amount of web-based, self-service versus human-based help.

While a customer may be able to order or comment on your service , the customer cannot complete the experience of the purchase until the service has been completed. Until the transaction is over, you cannot gain a repeat customer. You can certainly lose one.

Need an example of how to over complicate your site? Here. I gave up counting the total number of clickable items after I hit 50. How “human” is American Airlines, a company of over 70,000 employees? What about Cake Love, a company of a 100 employees (that’s my best guess, figuring an aggressive figure of 30/store). Which company is providing better service over the web?

Is the web trying to replace your people? Is it trying to be a tool in making your service better?  (Note: There’s no real answer to this question.  Welcome to Web 2.0.)