Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sorry Walmart. I don't buy books or DVDs but digital content

As my love affair with my Kindle Fire continues, I realize that my buying habits are strongly influenced by my Kindle Fire.  I don't go to Barnes and Noble to buy books anymore.  I now go to Barnes and Nobles to have a Starbucks coffee (a venti bold) and an old-fashioned donut.  I don't meander towards the section at Walmart where $5.00 DVDs are littered in a container.

I used to buy DVDs but now I don't.  I don't miss my five kids' small fingers scratching the DVDs or finding the DVDs in unexpected places.  My PS3 DVD drive doesn't work either due to curious kids playing with the PS3 buttons.

With Amazon, Netflix and other companies pushing streaming content, I don't buy my content on physical devices.  I buy movies and books on Amazon and store it on their cloud. I plan to purchase kindles for my wife and my older two kids in the next few months and give them access to my Amazon library.  I also plan to lock down the kids devices and let them access Amazon freetime which is a kid friendly site.

It is true that you cannot stream content on the Kindle without Wi-Fi.  The big question is then what do we do when we are traveling in a car.  The Kindle let's you download movies and books on the device. 

This leads to a future prediction.  Cars will have Wi-Fi connects which will allow their passengers to access content while traveling.

What does this mean to traditional companies like Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble who sell content on traditional devices.  They need to evolve.

I could see them getting in content storage business.  What!!! WalMart in data storage business?  No way!!!  Disney is doing this already.  When you buy a Disney movie on DVD, you can also access the DVD content online via DisneyFile.  Disney may done it for mobile devices like iPads and other tablets but there is a market for content storage.  Amazon sells content storage space at an extremely rate.  Check out Amazon Glacier

All said and done.  Digital information business is rapidly evolving.  Security is a concern but that hasn't stopped folks like me changing their buying habits and driving change.