Round up #80: Amazon spoils Mockingjay, Walmart

Round up #80: Amazon spoils Mockingjay, Walmart

Walmart offering Kindle deal for Mothers’ Day?

I was sort of holding off on this, hoping to get a confirmation before I ran it, but it looks like it might not be known for sure until Sunday…and some of you just might be shopping for Kindles this weekend for Mothers’ Day (or other reasons).

S. Bain, in this

Amazon Kindle community thread

linked to this image:

http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee397/vinyljunkie1/aec0440b.jpg

It’s supposed to be a “leaked” ad for Walmart, presumably for their this weekend. It shows that if you buy a Mindle for $79 during the sale period, they’ll give you a $30 Walmart gift card.

A few important points:

• We don’t know if this is even a real ad
• If it is, we don’t know if Walmart would have changed it or not by then
• We don’t know if it’s a national ad
• You’d be shopping at Walmart, and not everybody wants to do that

The question came up about Amazon price-matching.

First, Amazon doesn’t promise to price-match most things. If you click on the link on most pages to report a lower price, it says

“Found a lower price? Let us know. Although we can’t match every price reported, we’ll use your feedback to ensure that our prices remain competitive.”

Second, the price of the Mindle would still be $79…that would be the price match, not $49.

Still, that’s an attractive deal. You could use the $30 for accessories, like a cover or a light.

I’ll keep checking the for the ad, and update this if I see it.

Amazon spoils Mockingjay

Okay, some of you know this about me…I really don’t like spoilers. My favorite thing in entertainment is to be surprised, and taking that away from somebody is…let’s go with inappropriate.

When a newspaper spoiled a big Star Wars secret, above the fold (so it showed in newspaper stands), I never bought that newspaper again.

Well, I’m glad I hadn’t seen this before I got my first Kindle!

http://dcist.com/2012/04/spoiler_alert_blue_line_advertiseme.php

I’m going to do something atypical here, and not recommend that you read the article…because ironically, the article about the spoiling reproduces the spoiling…and even comments on it!

Without giving away the details, the basic story is that there was a big ad on a public transit vehicle for the Kindle…and it showed the opening paragraphs of Mockingjay, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series.

It would be different if it was the first paragraphs of the first book…that just gets you started, it doesn’t tell you about events before you would discover them in the course of the series.

I know, it was some advertising agency’s decision, and I’m not holding Amaozn responsible…but if that was my first contact with the company, it might have been different.

Bloomberg: A Pair of Kindle-Killers Surpass Amazon: Rich JaroslovsTrg article

Rich Jaroslovsky writes about two devices: the NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight (TM) and the Galaxy Tab 2.

I personally don’t think that the Galaxy Tab 2 is a direct competitor to the Fire…oh, it’s in the same class, certainly, but at this point, if you aren’t tied to a content supplier, I don’t really think it’s a one-to-one. That’s just my opinion on that, though…feel free to disagree, I’m not very solid on it.

As to the GlowLight (TM), yes, Barnes & Noble stole a march on Amazon…again. It has happened before…the NOOKColor beat the Fire handily to market, but the Fire was, I would say, considerably superior.

I’m expecting Amazon to come out with a glow light (not TM) reflective screen Kindle this year…at least one.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

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