Ebook Readers Want Bigger Discount for Ad-Sponsored Kindle
In a recent survey of bibliotastic.com users only a fifth thought the 20% discount Amazon is offering on the ad-sponsored Kindle was a good deal. The vast majority thought a bigger discount was needed to justify the intrusion of adverts on their ereader.
- (1888PressRelease) May 16, 2011 - Amazon recently introduced a discounted version of its Kindle that carries advertising on the home and idle screens. Instead of paying the usual $139 price for the Wi-Fi Kindle, the ad-sponsored device sells for just $114, an 18% discount. As well as sponsored adverts Amazon also makes special offers (such as $10 for a $20 Amazon.com gift card) through banner ads. The ads appear at the bottom of the home screen and on the screensaver when the device is idle - they don't pop up while reading books.
Our initial reaction at bibliotastic.com was to groan: oh, no - not another advertising platform! Given the daily bombardment of advertising surely our books should be untainted by such distractions, even if our newspapers and magazines are not. Then again, it is a $25 discount that Amazon is offering and we can always just ignore the adverts as we do on web sites.
So we thought we'd put it to our users to let us know what they think. Around 10% of bibliotastic users said they thought the 20% ereader discount for advertising was fair while surprisingly another 10% said they would settle for an even smaller discount. However, around 30% said they wanted as much as a third off the price to justify the advertising and nearly half of all respondents said they would need a discount even greater than 30% in order to suffer ads.
The users of bibliotastic.com are likely to already own an ereader and as such may not be that interested in an advertising subsidised Kindle. However, there are plenty of consumers that are yet to embrace ereaders and for them the lower price point may be more important than commercial intrusions in their ereading device.
Bibliotastic co-founder Bernard Gerard noted "The ad-sponsored Kindle is an interesting idea that helps make ereading a little more affordable for late adopters. However, I'm not sure it will be a great money-spinner for Amazon. I suspect it won't be long before some bright spark figures out a way of disabling the adverts and walking away with the ad-sponsored Kindle advert-free."
The survey took place from 15 April to 11 May 2011 and involved 81 participants. The results can be seen here:
http://www.bibliotastic.com/poll/ereader-advert-discount
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