tablets | Internet Marketing Blog

Is the netbook dead?

It may be hard to remember, but just a few short years ago consumers were snapping up 'netbooks', those laptop lookalikes that were as affordable as they were small, at a rapid pace.

How rapid? 5.6m of them were sold in the third quarter of 2008 alone.

by Patricio Robles 28 November 2011 17:01pm 4 comments

Is the Kindle Fire already impacting iPad sales?

With the Kindle Fire, Amazon is getting into the tablet space in a big way and unlike other tablet manufacturers, which have found it difficult to compete head-on with the iPad, Amazon has developed a device that may very well allow it to compete with it in a more indirect way.

Apple isn't worried, but a new survey suggests that the Kindle Fire is having a direct impact on the iPad.

by Patricio Robles 10 November 2011 17:42pm 0 comments

Amazon, Barnes & Noble open new fronts against the iPad

Not too long ago, one could track the e-reader and tablet markets separately and have a legitimate reason to do so. It was clear that the Kindle, for instance, was not the iPad, and the iPad was not the Kindle.

But as technology evolves and hardware prices continue to fall, the differences between e-readers and tablets is shrinking and it appears that both markets are, for all intents and purposes, converging rapidly.

That makes for an interesting battle between Apple and, well, everyone else.

by Patricio Robles 01 November 2011 14:06pm 3 comments

Should mobiles and tablets influence your web design?

If designers thought they had it bad having to deal with multiple browsers, the past several years have made it clear: IE6 is a walk in the park.

Today, thanks to the rise of smart phones and tablets, designers are tasked with designing across a wide range of devices, many with different form factors, platform capabilities and hardware profiles.

The future is mobile, so not surprisingly, when it comes to building sites designed for mobile and tablet devices, many companies think of their web experience and mobile/tablet experience as separate entities.

That can be painful and costly, but a result of this could be that companies gain insights that allow them to improve the experiences they create for their users and customers.

by Patricio Robles 10 October 2011 15:29pm 0 comments

Publisher tablet revenue growing more meaningful

Investing millions to launch an iPad-only publication may prove to be one of the best ways of making a small fortune from a large fortune, but for traditional publishers that have been hawking their wares on the iPad, Kindle and NOOK, tablets are starting to have an impact.

That's according to two executives from Condé Nast and Hearst who took part in a panel at the American Magazine Conference.

Both indicated that their companies are close to achieving $10m in revenue from tablets.

by Patricio Robles 06 October 2011 16:32pm 0 comments

Amazon readies the Kindle Fire: report

Amazon's Kindle e-reader may be one of the most popular e-readers, but the company's long-term position in the market is far from certain.

On one flank, the Kindle competes with the most popular tablet device, the iPad, and on the other, competitors like Barnes & Noble have built more sophisticated devices like the NOOK Color.

So Amazon is rumored to be responding later this week with a new version of the Kindle that's more like the iPad and NOOK Color.

Dubbed the Kindle Fire, it will reportedly feature a 7" backlit display, books (of course), plenty of magazine subscriptions, and apps to boot.

by Patricio Robles 27 September 2011 14:18pm 0 comments

Mozilla turns its attention to the tablet

On mobile devices, the battle between native and web apps is still going strong. Native is clearly winning if you look at the numbers, but that doesn't mean that many aren't betting big on the web.

Not surprisingly, the battle between native apps and the web has extended to the tablet market, even though tablets are far more capable web browsing devices than their mobile phone counterparts.

by Patricio Robles 31 August 2011 14:05pm 1 comment

Tablets are from Mars, e-readers are from Venus

Whether you're male or female, there's an almost equal chance that you own a smartphone. But what about tablets and e-readers? Do men and women share different preferences when it comes to the latest and greatest mobile devices?

According to Nielsen's latest survey of mobile device owners, the answer is increasingly 'yes.' In Q2 2011, it found that 61% of e-readers were owned by women, up from 46% in the third quarter of 2010. Tablets? Almost the opposite: 57% of them are owned by men.

by Patricio Robles 26 August 2011 14:31pm 7 comments

Thanks to simplicity, the New Yorker thrives on the iPad

As publishers and new media companies try to tap into the potential offered by the iPad, many have decided that offering richer, multimedia-laden experiences is the way to go.

Take Push Pop Press, for instance. Its vision for tablet publications: turn them into interactive applications. Its centerpiece, Al Gore's Our Choice interactive e-book, was heralded as "one of the most...impressive apps you've ever seen."

by Patricio Robles 03 August 2011 10:22am 0 comments

Should publishers sell tablets?

When Apple announced the iPad, many executives in the publishing industry voiced high hopes for the tablet device. "This could be the technology that helps us capitalize on digital," they effectively said in one way or another.

Of course, today we know that the iPad isn't a panacea for traditional publishers. That, of course, doesn't mean that tablet devices aren't important to them, or that they should abandon all hope.

But how much hope is too much hope?

by Patricio Robles 12 July 2011 15:50pm 1 comment