Barnes & Noble e-reader leaks early
In 2000 I started a e-commerce website selling books from a stocked inventory of books passed on to me by a semi-retiring publisher. The publisher was moving his business online and no longer selling them from his community stable brick and mortar. His plans were to move online and sell his entire inventory. I joined the race of online entrepreneurs looking for a niche market to enter and claim a stake.
I have since stop selling books online and began to revaluate our business model just in time for the rush of new e- reader devices like the Kindle, Sony Reader and now Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. bookstore chain has entered the market with the Nook. The Nook was leaked today and finally reveled to the consumer market with features that not even the Seattle online book giant Amazon could brag about.
The “Android based” nook is calling itself the “most advanced e- book reader on the planet” weighing 11.2 ounces and a color touch screen. The device releases just a few months after the second edition of the Kindle went for sale. The features that are the most interesting to me is that it has a built in WiFi with 2GB of storage, a microSD expansion slot, MP3 player, built in speaker, USB port, with the ability to highlight words and make notes. Since so many devices are competing for the 8 percent U.S. adult market who purchased a e-book in 2008 it helps that the Nook allows users to lend books to other e-readers, cellphones or computers through a feature called “LendMe.”
Mixtapes vs. Podcast
In 1979 popular music culture was dominated by disco music, rock n roll, R& B, and funk bands that were entering the 80s with a gumbo mixture later known as hip hop. The culture of hip hop began as a subculture for young people who were not old enough to get into the late night disco clubs and could not afford the many instruments of a rock band. Instead they developed a form of art that intertwined music, fashion, art, and dance that grew from Jamaica sound systems to American Latino and black communities in the inner city.
Hip hop as a culture in the beginning was underground and often criticized by the older generation as a fad that would not last longer than a few years. This avoidance became a growing epidemic that eventually stretched to the west coast, suburbs and all across the world as a dominant youth expression. Building from the rebellious music of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin hip hop began to express the anger of American ghettos in a form of poetry that required blunt verbal sentencing. Mixing this lyrical format with modern technology instruments like the turntable, keyboards, and drum machines the rhythm reflected a new sound that allowed boys and girls to dance in style called B-boying or B-girling. The usage of new technology became crucial in hip hop’s early stages as more producers and writers were able to make an album without the large budget spending of a six piece band.
Record companies saw this evolution as a great opportunity to make profits without big investments. The only problem was to convince the radio stations and TV networks to allow hip hop to perform in the mix of their traditional playlist. There was no “hip hop” hour for DJs to play unlike a blues show, rock show, or R & B show in regular broadcasting radio stations. Once the underground demands for this new form of music out grew the resistance, hip hop finally entered mainstream media. Commercialization became part of the marketing of the record companies and profit was the only concern which in return choked artist from expressing themselves honestly. The mainstream music became a negative reflection of the communities that vibrantly birthed hip hop providing radio programs the power to choose what people should hear.
