How Low can Kindle Prices Go?

Kindles at $79 and $99 ought to drive quite a lot of adoption of basic e-readers. The issue is what comes next, at the low end.

Over the last four years, prices for the low-end model have dropped from about $400 to $80.

Bundle a content subscription and the price could be really low.

Kindle pricing over time

"Unintended Consequences" of Financial Reform Laws

Bank of America Corp. plans to charge its customers a $5 monthly fee for making debit-card purchases starting early in 2012, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The fee will apply to customers with various checking accounts during any month they use their debit card to make a purchase. The fee will not apply to customers who do not use their debit card to make a purchase or who only use it to make ATM transactions. The fee also will not apply to customers in certain premium accounts.

Bank of America is trying to cushion revenue losses it expects to incur from new caps on the fees merchants pay when a customer uses a debit card at their stores. In June, the Federal Reserve Board finalized rules capping such fees at 24 cents per transaction, compared with a current average of 44 cents.

Other banks have introduced or are testing new fees in response to the debit-fee caps, which stem from a provision known as the Durbin amendment in last year's Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul legislation.

The moves illustrate the unintended consequences that tend to develop from "well meaning" regulation. The Durbin amendment ostensibly was an attempt to "protect" consumers and retailers from "high transaction fees." But the rules also represent an immediate $6.6 billion reduction in bank revenue.

So what will the banks do? Raise other fees to recoup the losses. Retailers might still be happy to pay the lower transaction fees. But the shortfall will be made up directly by customers.

BofA to Charge Debit-Card Fee - WSJ.com (subscription required)

More sales leads stem from websites, not social media

The website was cited by executives as the top online source of sales leads (23 percent), followed by e-mail (14 percent), online advertising (7 percent), and social media (3 percent), in a recent survey sponsored by Demandbase. None of that should be surprising. So far, the best advice for a business of almost any size is that if there were only one tool to invest in, the company website would top the list.

Enterprises emphasized the importance of measuring volume (44 percent total), while small businesses emphasized quality of leads (40 percent total). More sales leads from websites, not social media

Social is Not About Media

A social business, then, by definition, is one which engages customers across a multitude of channels, across the entire organization, and is active in their communication and interactions. Human relations, finance, billing, accounts receivable, support and operations all have social dimensions. No group can sit idly by and say that it does not apply to them. You can no longer be indispensable to your customers for long. Your customers can always readily find an alternative. Social is about all business processes, not just marketing and promotion.

Stop thinking social media, just think social

Google Gets New Dept. of Justice Scrutiny

Google says on its policy blog that "we know that close scrutiny is part of the process and we've been talking to the U.S. Department of Justice over the past few weeks" about the acquisition of Motorola Mobility. "

"Today we received what is called a "second request," which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. (This is pretty routine; we’ve gotten these kind of requests before.)," Google says.

"While this means we won't be closing right away, we're confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes," says Dennis Woodside, Google SVP.

Maybe the follow up is relatively routine. But these days, antitrust scrutiny seems to be pronounced, in the case of big household names.

An update on Motorola acquisition

Does FTTH Lead to Economic Growth?

If fiber to the home could show clearly that it boosts service provider revenue and reduces cost, more observers would be unabashed supporters. But large-scale deployments in the United States are relatively ambiguous, one might argue. Verizon has the overwhelming footprint and much of the total industry experience, and observers still cannot agree on whether FiOS has been a clear success or not.

Likewise, nearly everybody seems to believe that fiber to the home is required for economic development. But even there, the impact is hard to discern. David Russell at Calix tried to test the hypothesis, looking at communities where FTTH had been in place for at least five years, was deployed ubiquitously and was deployed at a regional commercial center.

Based on what is available today (data through 2008) Russell looked at the growth between 2004 and 2008 and compared the results from the towns served by FTTH with the rest of their states. It turns out that of the five (Bristol, Va./Bristol, Tenn.; Dalton, Ga.; Jackson, Tenn.; Reedsburg, Wisc.; and Windom, Minn.) only three did better in business creation than other towns in their state. In both Dalton and Reedsburg, business creation trailed other areas of Georgia and Wisconsin, respectively.

When it came to job creation, only Bristol and Dalton did better than other towns in their states. But that's not to say they added jobs. Bristol actually lost three percent of jobs and Dalton nine percent.

So only the Bristol area did better than the rest of its state (Virginia) in both job and business creation.

Unfortunately, when economic data is available for the 2008 to 2010, the data isn't likely to improve, given the effects of the Great Recession of 2008. So it is likely to remain more a matter of faith, not fact, that FTTH indeed clearly underpins economic growth.

FTTH's Benefits Are Not Obvious

LTE in France Will Require Facilities Sharing

French mobile service providers are going to have to share tower infrastructure and resources to support Long Term Evolution, analysts at Fitch Ratings say.

The pressure to share infrastructure will occur because the demands of investing in LTE are going to put huge pressure on mobile service provider cash flow. This makes network sharing or roaming more likely. Network sharing key for French LTE