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Last week marked an important milestone for Amazon customers and anyone else looking to establish a digital library. Amazon released details on its newest Kindle generation as they plan to ship the revolutionary reading device towards the end of August. Special arrangements made for the announcement of the new and improved Kindle include showing a personal letter written from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to visitors on the Amazon.com home page. In addition, Bezos made an appearance on PBS to do an interview with Charlie Rose last week, where he answered many pressing questions regarding the Kindle as well as the tablet PC market.

Take a look at the interview, the insight on the newest Kindle as well as other potential customers is worth tuning in.

Some highlights from the interview include:

• Bezos believes the Kindle has the ability to transcend the readers mind into visualizing solely the page, just like a book.
• Amazon has a leg up on the competition because their mission is to be “the earth’s most customer centric company”.
• The Kindle price point is affordable, unlike the iPad among other e-readers.
• Over 600,000 books are available on the Kindle in 60 seconds or less. (Most for $9.99 or less)
• Clothing is the fastest growing segment on Amazon. Their philosophy is buy 3, return the 2 that don’t fit.
• Bezos projects that in the future, people in society will fulfill their needs through an array of devices.
  • Kindle for reading, smart-phone, laptop, tablet PC.
• The new Kindle’s one month battery lifespan relieves battery power anxiety.
• The Apple iPad is not a competitor to the Kindle because it offers one of the best web-browsers. Therefore, more customers are shopping on Amazon.com.

The final post in this series of sources of information that I recommend. As most of the readers of this blog would agree, most of the information we take in now in 2009, comes from the internet. Fittingly, today I will list the websites/blogs that I seek daily for news, information, and more.

Websites that I read daily-

Twitter –

Just thought I would get this one out of the way…

THEWEBLIST.net –

Their title explains it the best: “What people are clicking on today.” And in even simpler terms- Stories that have made it to the front page of digg, delicious, reddit, etc.

Mashable –

Stay informed on everything related to social media. They often provide comprehensive insight into the socialsphere.

TechCrunch –

Seriously, how can you be on the web and not read TechCrunch? This is one of the most read blogs in the world.

RedHerring –

This is also a magazine, and they cover mostly stories connecting business and technology.

VentureBeat –

Really cool information on the latest startup companies on the web.

Hacker News –

Nope, it’s not what it sounds like. This is a real quality stream of news related mostly to startup companies.

SocialTimes –

I like their tag line: “Technically social.” They cover all news related to companies making money via social media. Such as virtual currency networks.

If you have any recommendations for a website that belongs on that list, feel free to leave a comment; I’d be happy to add it.

Hopefully this series of my daily reading materials will keep you busy, and better informed. Thanks!

There is no question that everyone reading this post uses internet tools to live smarter. Whether the internet tools you use help you simplify, organize, monetize, or save money, we all use them. As of 2009, participation on the internet is at an all time high because people want to live more efficient lives. This means more and more people continue to be exposed to different media, diverse viewpoints, and posses the ability to connect with one another at the same time. Really, now how fascinating is that, when compared to just 50 years ago?

So, as you can see, the internet is revolutionizing the way people live. I know, that first paragraph was way to generic. Here are some specific examples of how the internet allows the world to live smarter:

Education– The intended use of the internet. How many of you have learned what you do on the internet now, through a book?

Communication– Probably the most vital aspect of being able to function. Email saves paper, thus saving the environment. Plus it’s a whole lot cheaper than regular mail.

Performance Marketing– Businesses are now able to maximize advertising ROI because they have the ability to micro target consumers, who are interested in buying their products online.

Analytics– Humans have never before been able to analyze, compare, and contrast people’s actions. Therefore, more precise trends can be predicted.

Social– Relationships are important to success with anything. Social media has taken relationships to the next level.

Save Money– This past weekend, I booked a room on Priceline.com for $90/night in D.C.. I bid for a 4 star hotel with 2 kings. I ended up with a suite that had 3 kings, 3 bathrooms, a dining room, a large living room, and 4 LCD TV’s. The best part, the room’s standard rate is $5,500/night. Now would you call that living luxurious or living smarter?

What do you do on the internet to live smarter?

Edit: Related article- http://tinyurl.com/chrhn6

I was inspired to write this post after a recent talk with the MediaTrust CEO Peter Bordes about innovation within the internet marketing industry.

Online advertising spending is projected to reach $25.7 billion in 2009, and $42 billion by 2013. A 78% increase over 2008’s $23.6 billion in online spending.(emarketer.com) For an industry that is growing at astonishing rates, most of the companies that are heavily profiting have not put much back into researching and devloping new tools to capitalize on this growth in the coming years. To all affiliates out there, please name 3 recently released tools that allow you to be more productive, your campaigns to be more efficient, and ulitmately more profitable. Not so easy, huh? This lack of innovation will only hurt affiliates in the future. This is because the few networks that are investing in developing better ways to market online now, will blow past competition when growth slows. The affiliates who are associated with the networks that are investing in the right places will benefit tremendously, no doubt.

There are a few reasons for a lack of innovation by both affiliate networks and advertising networks. First, a lot of affiliate networks don’t care because there isn’t a lot of competition, and today they are growing strong. Their antiquated tracking systems work, and affiliates continue to promote their hot offers, which not to mention always “higher payouts than anyone else”. Secondly, advertising networks keep seeing gross clicks and impressions increase as the web is used more and more. So, advertisers will have cheaper rates and the publishers will make more and more money. In other words, the mentalitly of the affiliate and advertising networks is that people will continue to go where the money is. That’s definitly not a sound long term business strategy.

So, the question is which people are setting the right example and more importantly, are setting themselves up for strong business in the future? Most certainly Advaliant/MediaTrust, Motive Interactive, and Wes Mahler/Prosper202. Both Advaliant and Motive posses the leading affiliate interfaces that will soon posses algorithims to match offers with an affiliates past history promoting other offers, and maximize the relationship between affiliates and advertisers. Wes Mahler is worthy of being thanked by every single successful affiliate today, thanks to his opensource PPC tracking system Prosper202.

On the flip side, the companies that are lacking in the innovation department (among others): MaxBounty, and almost all networks using DirectTrack. Take a look at MaxBounty’s homepage, when I applied at first I thought  I was in the wrong site. Their site is straight out of the dot com bust. Seriously, would you feel safe putting your PPC budget into very technology developed 9 years ago?  Remeber that’s like 100 internet years. To the networks using the DirectTrack interface, great, you are making lots of money. However, DirectTrack serverly limits the amount of customization in the affiliate interface. Not good when it comes to 2010 and several other netowrks have more powerful tracking sytems and limitless opportunities to help out affiliates even more. Props to Ads4Dough for initiating their own switch over to their own custom tracking platform.

So, to the affiliate networks out there, take the hint, you will be ahead of the competition down the road if you invest now. As for the advertising networks, first make an effort to be friendly with some of your biggest spenders, then innovate. Watchout in the coming months for industry leading changes by Advaliant. They are brewing up some pretty neat features for affiliates, not seen anywhere else.