Skirmish in the Tablet Wars: Nook Tablet™ vs. Kindle Fire

Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire

I received a Nook Simple Touch™ from a good friend last Christmas and love it.  My friend chose Nook for both of us over the then-current Kindle offering because of the OverDrive® library compatibility.  The OverDrive service allows participating public libraries to “lend” out digital versions of books to Nook and other tablet owners as if they were hardcopy books.  You just need to get yourself a library card from a participating library.  Thousands of libraries around the country are part of the OverDrive service which made Nook stand out from Kindle – a year ago.

In September 2011, Amazon and OverDrive announced their new alliance to allow the Kindle to participate in the OverDrive service and accept downloaded public library eBooks.  Kindle Fire is also offering an owner lending library (Nook has the LendMe™ program), which was another reason my friend went with Barnes & Noble at the time.

Both the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire can accept OverDrive downloads as well as offer a lending library for its respective owners. Other similarities include:

• Full color, 7″ touch screen display
  
• Integrated 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
  
• Dual processor hardware; Android-ish OS
• USB port for external downloads
  
• Availability of over one million books, games, apps, movies, TV shows and song titles
  
• Netflix, HuluPlus and Pandora apps built in
  
• Web browsing and email apps built-in
  
• Children’s Books and Graphic Novels
  
• Built-in dictionary while reading
  
• Cloud storage, limited to purchased content native to B&N/Amazon, respectively.
  

Nook Tablet "Read & Record"

After exhaustive research among customer reviews and articles by “experts”, I have come to some conclusions based solely on my own personal taste. In many respects, the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire are similar devices, but a few features set the Nook Tablet apart from the Kindle Fire, in my estimation.

• BATTERY LIFE. Both devices were tested under ideal conditions (Wi-Fi off, power save mode) and the NT battery will give you about 3 hours more reading time or 1.5 hours more video time than KF.
  
• RESPONSIVENESS. Both devices boast a dual processor and run on proprietary variants of the Android OS, but anecdotal data claims that NT offers the better response times during scrolling, page turning, etc. KF only beat NT on Web page downloads – 2.5 sec on KF vs. 4 sec on NT.
  
• READING FEATURES. NT still wins in best text display – easy on the eyes, display of page numbers, readable in sunlight, easy bookmarking management and font flexibility.
  
• SOCIAL MEDIA ACCESS. NT will link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts so you can post comments on media that you have read, viewed or listened to.
  
• LOCAL STORAGE. KF includes 8GB local storage, but about 2GB are sucked up by the OS and its apps. That leaves about 6GB for storing user content and no expansion is available because no SD port is available on KF. The NT has 13GB of available local storage, 12GB reserved for B&N content. However, the NT sports a microSD slot and will support up to a 32GB microSD card, expanding non-B&N storage far more than the KF.
  
• NON-AMAZON MUSIC FILES. KF will only support Amazon formatted and MP3 music files, ruling out many iTunes and all *.WAV files. If you can successfully convert *WAV files to MP3 without sacrificing sound quality, maybe the KF will work for you. NT will support almost any music file format.
  
• ERGONOMICS. The NT just looks more attractive than the KF. Menus fit better on the NT screen, pages turn smoother, colors and text are more clear and crisp and reading in sunlight is still better on the Nook product. The NT boasts a Home key and a physical volume control button; the KF has neither. The NT is about ½ ounce lighter than the KF, making it easier to read with one hand.
  
• BUILT-IN MICROPHONE. The NT allows you to narrate certain children’s books so your kids or grand kids can hear a story in your voice.
  
• PRICE. NT was introduced at $249, the KF at $199.
  

Two of KF’s features – Instant Streaming Videos (Amazon hosted content) and WhisperSync (synching video playback to TV or PC) require Amazon Prime membership. It costs $79 per year and was first introduced to discount shipping on selected Amazon products for its members. B&N does not require any membership for its Nook services.

Aside from the Web page loading, I found one flaw with the NT: the speaker port is on the back of the device. If you lean the NT face up on any surface while playing music or video, the audio may sound a bit muffled. Since audio is not an important application for me, this flaw has no weight for me.

If you want to save the $50, consider the Nook Color™. B&N dropped the price on the Nook Color to $199 with the promise to add streaming Netflix, HuluPlus and Pandora services and comic books “soon”.  It has all the readability features, Wi-Fi and most of the ergonomic characteristics of the NT at the KF price. But for my money, I’d go with the Nook Tablet.

Selected Sources:    Customer Reviews, Amazon.com

            Customer Reviews, Barnes & Noble

            Lean Mean Consuming Machine, by Casey Johnston

            CNET Review, “Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet” by David Carnoy and Donald Bell

Cloud Skills Can Translate into Success in 2012 | AccountingWEB.com

SOCIAL MEDIA excerpt from AccountWEB.com article…

(DCE: Lamb’s conclusion at the end is quite provocative and opens up whole new job descriptions for corporate IT teams.)

"Social Business"

[The] adoption of social media for business purposes – called social business by IBM – varies by country, depending on the perception of security concerns and local acceptance of this technology, according to the study. Different countries appear to have different comfort levels with this drive for critical mass. India is already embracing social business adoption very strongly 57%, followed by the US 45% and China 44%. Russia shows the strongest resistance with a score of 19%.

The survey showed employee collaboration, efficiency in locating people and resources, and idea generation and sharing as the top three motivators for internal deployment. The three top social business capabilities that companies are using at the moment: file sharing, blogs and forums. Most organizations will concentrate on internal deployment of social business in the coming two years. Bodies with customer-facing external applications are more likely to deploy their own social platforms (41%) than use third-party systems such as Facebook (20%).

via Cloud Skills Can Translate into Success in 2012 | AccountingWEB.com

Written by John Lamb for BusinessCloud9.

Corporate Social Media Publishing – Who Should Be Authorized?

Today’s viral marketing environment demands more and more content, which can only be satisfied with more and more authors. Companies themselves are struggling to find more cost effective means for getting the message out there, and the various social media outlets present very attractive options.

The first step in granting social media authorization is determining which departments will most benefit the Company by conversing on the Internet, along with which social media outlets will be most effective. Typically, you find customer-facing department heads are the most likely candidates for corporate social media authoring.  This includes Sales, Marketing, Customer Care, Technical Services, and the like. Some companies make a distinction among the various social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter, etc. – and define who publishes to which outlet if at all. The other end of the spectrum demands certain communications are posted to all available outlets – such as a new product announcement. Typical examples include:

• Sales can use LinkedIn to network with customers, prospects and even competitors in non-competitive situations.
• Sales and Marketing can collaborate on a company blog, discussing industry topics and sharing white papers.
• Marketing will email clients and prospects with regular promotional offers.
• Customer Care and Technical Services can use Twitter and Facebook to build open client forums for a free exchange of non-confidential issues.

The next step in granting authorization is to choose not only relevant departments, but individuals who know how to write well. Writing and writing well are two different concepts; just ask any 5^th grade English teacher. Your Company deserves the best voice it can muster for the world wide stage, so make sure your authors have meaningful and coherent thoughts which they can translate into a correct and compelling phrase or story. For help in this area, I strongly recommend “The Elements of Style”, “Eats Shoots and Leaves” and “On Writing Well”, which are some of the best no-nonsense writing guides out there today.

Once the Company’s authors have been identified, put their names and titles on an authorized list and publish the list company-wide so everyone understands who is an approved social media “ambassador” for the Company. Review the list periodically and make adjustments as needed. Keep the authorized publishers list as relevant and current as the technology it serves and your Company’s message will be well served.

In upcoming weeks, I will expand on the other six Core topics in a Corporate Social Media Publishing Policy. Next up, is “Who Controls the Company’s Messaging?”

For assistance drafting or editing your Company’s social media postings, contact the executive ghost writing experts at DCE Communications, LLC. Telephone 805-277-4889 or email diane@dcecommunications.net .

How To Make Short Work of The Dreaded Monthly Status Report

At the tender age of 35-ish, I finally found the time to distill a few hard-won lessons from my report-writing experiences into guidelines that can be shared. These tips will help the reader assemble a self-reminding template that makes it almost impossible for tasks to fall through the cracks. Your company may enforce its own guidelines, but the core principles laid out in this presentation can be easily adapted to any format.

How To Create Meaningful Monthly Reports

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