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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Looks dot Com either everyone and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, a host of tech Stuff, and I'm

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Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam another post of tech stuff. One of

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Speaker 1: these days we will have a standard way of doing

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Speaker 1: this ridiculous. Yes. So previously on tech Stuff we talked

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Speaker 1: about the history of Amazon dot Com leading up to

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Speaker 1: and including the dot Com crash, which was in the

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Speaker 1: year two thousand and so today we wanted to start

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Speaker 1: up where we left off and bring you up to

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Speaker 1: date on what Amazon has been up to. And it

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Speaker 1: turns out it's a whole heck of a lot a

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Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. But let's let's look back on two

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Speaker 1: thousand one. Now, two thousand's when the actual dot com

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Speaker 1: crash was. But the crash wasn't. Don't think of it

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Speaker 1: like a crash where suddenly all companies lost value. It

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Speaker 1: was actually more gradual than that. Companies like Amazon saw

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Speaker 1: their stock prices hit a steady decline, and that decline

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Speaker 1: would hit its lowest point as far as I was

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Speaker 1: able to determine any way, in UH in mid two

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Speaker 1: thousand one, when it hit just below six dollars per share,

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Speaker 1: And keep in mind that in in they were looking

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Speaker 1: at three hundred dollars per share before stock split, and

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Speaker 1: it even opened. At the end of the opening day,

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Speaker 1: it was at three dollars right. Yeah, so yeah, opening

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Speaker 1: day before the company had ever done really anything beyond

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Speaker 1: you know, it had been it had been an operation

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Speaker 1: for two years as a private company, had not turned

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Speaker 1: a profit, raised fifty four million dollars at twenty three

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Speaker 1: bucks a share two thousand one. It weathers the storm

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Speaker 1: of the dot com crash if I can mix all

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Speaker 1: sorts of metaphors, uh, and ends up at six dollars

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Speaker 1: per share. So this is a tough time and some

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Speaker 1: companies wouldn't have survived. In fact, a lot of companies

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Speaker 1: did not survive this this tumultuous time, and it did

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Speaker 1: not stop Amazon. In fact, they they did. They did

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Speaker 1: cut costs, they like laid off employees, closed or distribution facility. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They ended up seeking out and forming alliances with what

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Speaker 1: would have traditionally been considered competitors on Target and also

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Speaker 1: Borders Group. Yeah, that's a two big competitors right there.

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Speaker 1: They also introduced the concept of the for Amazon anyway,

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Speaker 1: for in store pick up where you would order an

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Speaker 1: item on Amazon dot Com and then go and pick

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Speaker 1: it up at what whichever store actually sold that thing.

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Speaker 1: So they had other alliances, not just with Target and

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Speaker 1: Borders they had they had previous alliances with companies like

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Speaker 1: Toys r Us and also Circuit City, which you know

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Speaker 1: had its own sad story, which I guess we could

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Speaker 1: do someday and talk about. Maybe maybe instead of just

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Speaker 1: Circuit City, we could talk about all box stores that

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Speaker 1: have suffered, because now we're seeing the same sort of

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Speaker 1: thing happened with Best Buy, which which survived the Circuit

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Speaker 1: City debacle but is now struggling on its own. That's

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Speaker 1: neither here nor there at this point. Target makes these

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Speaker 1: alliances in part to kind of wide Amazon. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that it was. You know, Target was in

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Speaker 1: it for the same reasons. Yes, Target, Target was, but

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Speaker 1: Target as a as a as a traditional retail establishment

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Speaker 1: was not affected as badly with the dot com crash

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Speaker 1: as web based companies. So thank you for correcting me,

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Speaker 1: because that was a definite correction that needed to happen.

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Speaker 1: But but yeah, Target, for its part, they were having trouble.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that that made investors

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Speaker 1: kind of wary about Amazon was that its competitors could

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Speaker 1: in theory, create their own websites and start to sell

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Speaker 1: things in these vast numbers that Amazon was enjoying hypothetically

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Speaker 1: right directly to their consumers as opposed to partnering with Amazon.

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Speaker 1: But it was take a while for that to work,

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Speaker 1: partly because you had these traditional retail establishments that they

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Speaker 1: the web space was foreign to them, that was not

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Speaker 1: where their expertise lay, and so to get into that

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Speaker 1: meant that they made a lot of mistakes. They had

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Speaker 1: to work with a lot of companies they weren't familiar with,

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Speaker 1: and it took it was it's a slow process. Whereas

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Speaker 1: Amazon was coming from the opposite direction they were looking

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Speaker 1: at they already had all these systems in place to

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Speaker 1: to categorize and and organize data about objects exactly, and

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Speaker 1: to handle all the customer information as well. So so yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was one of those things where, uh, it made

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Speaker 1: a made sense on both parties because Target could take

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Speaker 1: advantage of Amazon's interface, Amazon could take advantage of the

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Speaker 1: fact that Target had a lot of stuff that people

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Speaker 1: wanted and and both companies to Yeah, so they both benefited.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, by by the end of the year, they

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Speaker 1: had made UM three point two billion in sales um,

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Speaker 1: which you know, considering after right after the dot com crash,

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Speaker 1: that is not bad. And they also reported their first

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Speaker 1: net profit during the fourth fourth quarter of that year.

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Speaker 1: And this is this is major, This is huge because

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not only had they survived this

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Speaker 1: terrible crash of two thousand, but also for the very

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Speaker 1: first time in their entire history, actually turned to profit. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is this is kind of confusing in a

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Speaker 1: way because you're talking about a year in which they

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Speaker 1: see the lowest stock price for a for a share

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Speaker 1: of Amazon stock. The same year they have their first

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Speaker 1: net profit of one quarter. Again it's just one one quarter,

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Speaker 1: but but yeah, their annual loss was at a hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty nine million dollars for that year. So so

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Speaker 1: they're still losing money, but they're losing a slower rate

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Speaker 1: than they were before a trickle. Yeah, so you're talking

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Speaker 1: about a billion dollar industry but no profit. So uh,

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Speaker 1: but still Bezos is in it for the long haul.

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Speaker 1: He's able to hold it together despite all of this.

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Speaker 1: And they move on into two thousand two and uh

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Speaker 1: and Amazon continues to diversify and try new things. They

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Speaker 1: opened some new stores in apparel and accessories and office products,

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Speaker 1: which go hand in hand. I know when I'm shopping

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Speaker 1: for slacks, I also often need a stapler of course.

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Speaker 1: You know. Also Staples make great air rings. No, no,

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Speaker 1: don't do that. No listeners at home never never listened

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Speaker 1: to me, right, So um. They also launched Amazon Canada. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so the Canadians finally got to shop. It is Canadians.

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Speaker 1: I feel your pain as you sit there and think. Wait,

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Speaker 1: in that last episode you talked about them launching in

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Speaker 1: France and Japan and Germany in the UK. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: got out the Canada, especially since they were in Seattle.

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Speaker 1: I mean you could technically like spitt and hit him

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Speaker 1: from where you. I think what Canada would do is

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Speaker 1: they would just hop across the border and order things

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Speaker 1: and then hop back across. That's probably not true, Canadians.

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Speaker 1: I know you're all too nice to yell at me.

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Speaker 1: So um. Also, by the way, if you, if you

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Speaker 1: really want to feel superior, Atlanta lost its hockey teams.

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Speaker 1: So really, I'm just envious of Canada because I happen

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Speaker 1: to love hockey and I no longer have a team

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Speaker 1: to cheer for, and that's sad. Anyway, moving back to Amazon,

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Speaker 1: they also created their well, they had already created a

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Speaker 1: free Super Saver shipping program right back in back in

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Speaker 1: two THO actually missed that point. Yeah, that was when

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Speaker 1: if you ordered a hundred dollars or more you could

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Speaker 1: you could qualify for free shipping. They had reduced that

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Speaker 1: amount to twenty five dollars. Yeah, so this is an

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Speaker 1: effort of them trying to continue to to increase sales. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: they did not want for that momentum to slow down

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Speaker 1: because the momentum, frankly, was really all that was keeping

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Speaker 1: that company going at that point. Um. They also launched

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Speaker 1: Amazon Web Services. This is a one of the things

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Speaker 1: that really helped Amazon as well. Uh, this is a

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Speaker 1: back end thing that a lot of you know, retail

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Speaker 1: customers would never understand, but corporate customers, it's very important.

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Speaker 1: Amazon Web Services here's a direct quote from the site.

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Speaker 1: It offers a complete set of infrastructure and application services

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Speaker 1: that enable you to run virtually everything in the cloud,

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Speaker 1: from enterprise applications and big data projects to social games

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Speaker 1: and mobile apps. So basically what it means is that

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Speaker 1: Amazon took all of these amazing bits of technology and

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Speaker 1: software and infrastructure that they were using to make their

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Speaker 1: own business awesome, and they sold them piecemeal to anyone

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Speaker 1: who was interested in using. This is almost like leasing

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Speaker 1: really leash. Yeah, not not selling, but um but right yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so leasing the space, leasing the databases, leasing the programming. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is this This is a part of a

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Speaker 1: conversation that will probably have and yet another episode further

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Speaker 1: down the line when we talk about Amazon and its

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Speaker 1: impact in the industry. Because while we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: history of the company right now and we're talking about

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Speaker 1: some big idea is it's hard to stress what sort

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Speaker 1: of impact this made. Keep in mind, this is cloud

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Speaker 1: computing and cloud storage before people were even using that term,

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Speaker 1: and Amazon. You know, we often think, at least I

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Speaker 1: often think of Google as being huge with the cloud,

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Speaker 1: the cloud storage and cloud services. But really when you

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Speaker 1: look at it, it's Amazon that was a real pioneer

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Speaker 1: in that space. When you're talking about big big names. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not not not for personal use yet they would get

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Speaker 1: into that later, but for corporate use. We're talking like

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Speaker 1: major companies using Amazon because again, just like I was

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Speaker 1: talking about with the retail companies where the web space

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Speaker 1: was unfamiliar territory. You had these other big companies that

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Speaker 1: had the need to support at some sort of networked

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Speaker 1: infrastructure or online capability. But it's such a huge investment

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Speaker 1: to do that as a company. And to have that, like,

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Speaker 1: you have to have the space to to store the servers,

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Speaker 1: you have to have the people trained to maintain the servers.

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Speaker 1: You have to have the right kind of space because

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Speaker 1: if it gets too warm, the servers shutdown. Kind of

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Speaker 1: funny thing about computers. So Amazon was essentially saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: we know it's tough. We do this for a living,

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Speaker 1: so why don't we do it for you? And uh

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Speaker 1: and yeah, that ended up opening up a huge business opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Um and also uh, they ended up moving on to

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Speaker 1: uh to the next year. We're talking about their first

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Speaker 1: profitable year in two thousand three. So uh, two thousand three,

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Speaker 1: they have their first profitable year. They earn thirty five

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Speaker 1: million dollars overall, thirty five Okay, so they're sales, by

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Speaker 1: the way, so they make thirty five million. Here's how

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Speaker 1: much they sold one point nine five billion dollars worth

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Speaker 1: of stuff, so almost two billion dollars in sales, thirty

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Speaker 1: five million profit, so not a not a not a

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Speaker 1: not great margins. And it turns out, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it had a crazy holiday season that year. They processed

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Speaker 1: one million shipments and had twenty million inventory updates in

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Speaker 1: a single day. That's that's big. They also opened up

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Speaker 1: more stores. I probably won't be talking too much about

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Speaker 1: all the different stores they've got at this point. It's

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Speaker 1: just more stuff. I will say. That's when gourmet food

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Speaker 1: hit so yeah, important the stomach demands that I mentioned

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Speaker 1: that Also, this was the year two interesting things as

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Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned with with Bezos here. Um. One

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Speaker 1: was that he decided to pursue his love of space

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Speaker 1: exploration by funding a startup company called Blue Origin, which

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Speaker 1: is a Seattle based aerospace company working on private space flight.

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Speaker 1: He also had a near death experience that year. He

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Speaker 1: was on a helicopter, right, Yeah, he was in a helicopter. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and they were essentially scouting locations for Blue Origin. And

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Speaker 1: uh they were that they were about to take off

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Speaker 1: in this helicopter in a field I think it was.

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Speaker 1: And um, while they were starting to take off, the

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Speaker 1: helicopter drifted, the tail hit a tree, the helicopter began

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Speaker 1: to tilt and then it ended up flipping upside down

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Speaker 1: and landing in a creek. Bezos. Obviously he survived, but

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Speaker 1: apparently he said that he was asked like, did your

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Speaker 1: life flash before your eyes or did you suddenly have

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Speaker 1: like things that you wish you had done? He says, Actually,

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Speaker 1: what I thought was this would be a dumb way

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Speaker 1: to die, which is pretty awesome. Um, yeah, so you

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Speaker 1: know that's that was That was a pretty incredible experience.

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Speaker 1: He also said in an interview. This is unconnected with

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Speaker 1: the helicopter issue. They said an interview with Business Week.

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Speaker 1: When we can improve our personalization algorithms so that we

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Speaker 1: show something to somebody that they wouldn't have discovered in

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Speaker 1: any other way, and then that serves them very well,

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Speaker 1: that's something that's incredibly valuable. And that goes back to

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Speaker 1: something I said earlier. I think it was actually in

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Speaker 1: part one of Amazon, this idea of creating algorithms that

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Speaker 1: can predict customer wants and needs and behavior so that

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Speaker 1: you give you give the customer a really great shopping

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Speaker 1: experience and also in the process you make more sales,

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Speaker 1: so it benefits everyone. So when I go online and

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Speaker 1: I think, I really really want to buy that copy

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Speaker 1: of of of Halo four. Uh. It also says, hey,

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Speaker 1: I see that you really like being bad at video games.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you would also like to be bad at Assassin's

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Speaker 1: Creed three. And I say, yes, I would, and I

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Speaker 1: add that to the list, and that happened. Um, although

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Speaker 1: I should, I should point out right now Assassin's Creed

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Speaker 1: three is still in the shrink wrap. I have not

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Speaker 1: finished playing Halo four or Border Lens too. As it

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Speaker 1: turns out in February. First kids, both Jonathan and I

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Speaker 1: are lame at video games, but we we have played

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Speaker 1: online at the same time on the same team. We

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Speaker 1: did we did, and uh, Matt from from Stuff they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to know, John joined in as well. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we actually had Team House Stuff Works for a while.

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Speaker 1: We've had one person suggests that we have a tournament

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Speaker 1: of Team House Stuff Works versus Team Twit over this

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Speaker 1: week in tech. I don't know if anyone at twit

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Speaker 1: plays Halo or any other Xbox three sixty game, but

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Speaker 1: if they do, uh, it is on like Donkey Kong. Yes,

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Speaker 1: call us guys any any time, I as let me know.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's my he's my buddy over there, but

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Speaker 1: at any rate, Yeah, So getting back over to Amazon,

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Speaker 1: they also launched a service called A nine. Now. A

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Speaker 1: nine had development efforts in five areas product search, cloud search,

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Speaker 1: visual search, advertising technology, and community question answering, but when

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Speaker 1: it originally launched, it didn't actually go live until two

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Speaker 1: thousand four, but it was developed in two thousand three,

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Speaker 1: so this kind of less you have something specific about

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Speaker 1: two thousand segways into okay. Uh So. Originally the forward

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Speaker 1: facing part of A nine was a search portal, So

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Speaker 1: this is kind of competing with Google and Yahoo and

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Speaker 1: other search engines, but it allowed you to use different

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Speaker 1: filters or search groups like it had over four hundred

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Speaker 1: different groups you could search from, and you could choose

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Speaker 1: which groups to include or not include. So it was

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Speaker 1: very versatile in that sense, although I guess if you're

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Speaker 1: really getting bogged down into it, it it could probably take

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Speaker 1: you ages to do a search. But it was discontinued

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Speaker 1: that that part of A nine was discontinued in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight because it just wasn't getting a lot of traction.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of the technology they developed in A

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Speaker 1: nine still powers the search within Amazon itself. So when

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Speaker 1: you go to Amazon, you do a product search. That's

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Speaker 1: what's powering that search. It also is being used in

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Speaker 1: other e commerce sites, so it's not just Amazon that

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Speaker 1: uses that technology. Also in two thousand four, they launched

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Speaker 1: Amazon Theater. Uh, they launched more stores. Um. The tsunami,

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Speaker 1: the major tsunami that happened in two thousand four. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they donated a fifteen point seven million dollars yep, and

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Speaker 1: they they offered the ability for users to contribute directly

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Speaker 1: to the American Red Cross. Uh Amazon payments, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: you could. You could end up doing that. So that

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Speaker 1: was a good, uh show of community and support. They

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Speaker 1: also had that year bought jo dot Com, which became

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Speaker 1: Amazon China. Right. Dot Com was a kind of a

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Speaker 1: It became the largest book retailer in China at the time.

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Speaker 1: It was a strong contender, but was not yet the

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Speaker 1: number one, but did after Amazon bought them. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: Amazon Theater. In case you're wondering, it was a short

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Speaker 1: film series and they took uh the production company. They

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Speaker 1: used the production company that was formed by the Scots

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Speaker 1: that's a Ridley and Tony um and they produced five

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Speaker 1: short films that started Hollywood Actors. These were short shorts

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Speaker 1: that were released over several months, and they allowed users

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Speaker 1: to watch the films and then buy items that they

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Speaker 1: saw inside the film. So direct product placement. That's actually

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Speaker 1: really interesting. It's one of those things you've been hearing

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Speaker 1: about forever, right, Like one of the big promises of

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Speaker 1: web tv was that eventually you would be able to

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Speaker 1: watch a show and say, gosh, you know the Winchester

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Speaker 1: brothers on Supernatural, sure to wear nifty clothing. I really

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Speaker 1: want that shirt. I want to look I want to

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Speaker 1: look like Dean Winchester. So how do I get that jacket?

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Speaker 1: I've been watching so much of that show, Guys, I

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Speaker 1: really have I can't. I cannot help you. There. I

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Speaker 1: went through a Phineas and Ferb stage. It just happens, people.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you just be thankful you didn't get to

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Speaker 1: listen to my breaking bad phase. Um. But anyway, Yes,

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Speaker 1: So that was kind of the idea. It was sort

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Speaker 1: of a pilot program in a way. Uh didn't really

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Speaker 1: go that far, but it's still interesting that they were

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Speaker 1: starting to work with that sort of creative element. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and that comes into play again. So Amazon is

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Speaker 1: not finished with the creative element by any stretch of

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Speaker 1: the imagination. But this was this was sort of an

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Speaker 1: early like feeling the water kind of thing, and it

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Speaker 1: was just a little chilly as all. Two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: they introduced Amazon Prime, and I was so happy. I

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Speaker 1: don't think I got involved in Prime until recently, like

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Speaker 1: maybe actually I think that was closer to when I

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Speaker 1: did too, but it's still it's uh yeah, yeah. So

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Speaker 1: Amazon Prime, for those of you who do not know,

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Speaker 1: it's a program that for a yearly fee, you have

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Speaker 1: the option to get to day free shipping on lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of products, not everything, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: the stuff that's on Amazon is not actually offered directly

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Speaker 1: through Amazon. It's offered through a partner. Now, the companies

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Speaker 1: that partner with Amazon can choose to participate within the primeration,

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Speaker 1: but it's not necessity. So if they do participate, you

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Speaker 1: get two day free shipping on stuff, which is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: You would also later on get access to things like

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Speaker 1: the Amazon Instant Video database for for certain Prime movies

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Speaker 1: and TV shows, and also the capacity to loan out

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Speaker 1: Kindle books. Yep. That's that's something else that comes to Prime.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about more of those things when we

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Speaker 1: get to them. But yeah, and then that holiday season

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Speaker 1: they announced they sold one and eight million items. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of stuff. Yeah. They

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Speaker 1: also entered if a film agreement with drug Store dot

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Speaker 1: Com that year. UH and UH, I had had another

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Speaker 1: interesting note in here somewhere, but I can't read. That's

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Speaker 1: too bad because the clock is ticking. I'm about to

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Speaker 1: go into two thousand six. As of that year, they've

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Speaker 1: possessed the world's three largest Linux databases with uh capacities

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Speaker 1: of terabytes and tarabytes and tarabtes. Yeah. So again, you know,

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Speaker 1: you would sit there and think of like data storage,

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Speaker 1: you might think Google, but Amazon was the big name. UH.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, they launched Amazon Simple Storage

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Speaker 1: Service or S three UH, and they this is another

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Speaker 1: back end thing, but it's and it's something that eventually

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Speaker 1: customers would see in another form that's kind of a

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Speaker 1: split off of that. But they made a lot more

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Speaker 1: partnerships with merchants, retailers, and manufacturers. UH. They also launched

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Speaker 1: Amazon Connect, which was away for authors to reach readers

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Speaker 1: through sort of a blog like interface, but that would

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Speaker 1: eventually get replaced by what they call author pages. But

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Speaker 1: the idea was that by giving authors a direct route

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Speaker 1: to communicate with readers, it could enrich the experience because

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Speaker 1: we didn't really talk about it. In fact, this is

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Speaker 1: a very important point. But one of the other things

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Speaker 1: that really helped Amazon get through the dot com crash

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Speaker 1: is that they had, you know, user reviews, and user

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Speaker 1: reviews created this rich user experience that made Amazon more

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Speaker 1: of what what used to be called web two point oh.

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Speaker 1: The concept that a community is important online right crazy

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Speaker 1: that there has to the web two point oh has

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Speaker 1: a lot of different definitions to it, but part of

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Speaker 1: it is interactivity, uh, and the fact that users are contributors,

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Speaker 1: not just consumers. And also that you have dynamic content,

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Speaker 1: meaning that it does change over time. It's not just

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Speaker 1: a landing page you go to and it has you know,

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Speaker 1: a stock amount of information about the company. So and

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Speaker 1: and this was really revolutionary because being able to jump

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Speaker 1: on a website, look at a product that you're thinking

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Speaker 1: about buying and see that someone says, you know, I

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Speaker 1: really liked the shirt, but I got it and it

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Speaker 1: seems ripped in a day and a half and and

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Speaker 1: or or on the other hand, like this is a

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Speaker 1: terrific thing. I've bought five of them. I've had it

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Speaker 1: forever and it's wonderful, right, you know. I bought them

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Speaker 1: for friends and family for for gifts and everyone loves them.

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Speaker 1: That kind of thing and everything in between. And actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, Bezos has said repeatedly that that negative reviews

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Speaker 1: are just as important as positive ones because it shows

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Speaker 1: that Amazon is dedicated to to the to the consumer side.

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Speaker 1: I think he came under a little bit of fire

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Speaker 1: at some point from some companies that were saying, why

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Speaker 1: are you letting people post these negative reviews? And it

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Speaker 1: was like, well, because they're true, because your stuff isn't good,

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Speaker 1: make better stuff. Uh. You know, he points out that

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Speaker 1: to build customer trust, you have to have that. It's

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Speaker 1: also one of the reasons why Amazon is very very

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Speaker 1: keen to uh to get rid of any reviews that

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Speaker 1: are gaming the system, because that does happen. You have

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Speaker 1: occasionally you'll have a company and it might not be

397
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Speaker 1: the company directly. It might be say an outside PR

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Speaker 1: firm that comes in and and without the company's permission,

399
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Speaker 1: goes in and makes a whole bunch of fake reviews

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Speaker 1: for for a product on something like Amazon. To drive

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Speaker 1: up the rating to either to either positive reviews on

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Speaker 1: their own products or negative reviews on a competitor's product. Right,

403
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Speaker 1: So again, this isn't that something that necessarily a company

404
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: is is, uh, you know, colluding with a PR firm.

405
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: Some PR firms take it upon themselves, some companies do

406
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff on their own. But Amazon's approach

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Speaker 1: is to try and head that off as much as possible. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Also in two thousand and six, they launched the Amazon

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Speaker 1: Unboxed which is interesting. This is kind of a predecessor

410
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Speaker 1: to the instant video stuff Unboxed. What it would have

411
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Speaker 1: let you do is download a DVD quality film or

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Speaker 1: TV show and now you would download it to your

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Speaker 1: PC and you could watch it on your PC. You

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Speaker 1: could not watch it on anything else, and you could

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Speaker 1: not It was not compatible with max, it was not

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Speaker 1: compatible with Linux machines, only PCs running Windows, and you

417
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Speaker 1: could not poured it over to our devices. Yeah, so

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00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: you had to actually use the Amazon Unboxed video player

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Speaker 1: to watch it. So it's a um, you know, proprietary

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Speaker 1: video player. And you might think, well, that's kind of

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Speaker 1: lame Amazon, Uh, this is kind of a In two

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Speaker 1: thousand six well, it's also a restriction that the industry

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Speaker 1: is putting on Amazon right because they don't want they

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Speaker 1: definitely do not want you to be able to download

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Speaker 1: video and either distribute it as much as you like

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Speaker 1: or watch it on whatever you want. They want to

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00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: control that as much as possible because because of licensing issues,

428
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: because they make more money down the money. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: so it's not entirely Amazon's fault, although you know, people

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Speaker 1: argue about how much responsibility they have the same thing

431
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,400
Speaker 1: is true in the publishing industry when we get there,

432
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. And in two thousand six, just for perspective,

433
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: Amazon accounted four or five point one percent of the

434
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: online retail market. Uh, five point one percent out of

435
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: all retail, all retail online. That's that's huge, which is yeah,

436
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: I mean sounds like a really low number until you

437
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: think about that. The internet was sort of a thing

438
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 1: by two thousand six, and so that was definitely it

439
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: was definitely big. Housetu works was going strong by two

440
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: thou six, and uh, the next year's when Amazon really

441
00:24:57,040 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: comes up with something huge. But before we get there,

442
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: I think it's in weren't we take just a quick

443
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsored and now back to the show.

444
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: So it's two thousand seven. Amazon decides to rock the world,

445
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,719
Speaker 1: at least the world of publishing, and it releases the

446
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: Kindle e reader. It launched at a three. Reviews were

447
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,719
Speaker 1: pretty mixed about it. Actually, people weren't sure that this

448
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: entire electronic book thing was going to be a thing. Yeah,

449
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of people who were. I mean,

450
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: I was skeptical when it launched because I thought, hey,

451
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: I really like the feel and the smell of experience

452
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: of a book, absolutely, and then I eventually got to hey,

453
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: I like being able to carry a library without breaking

454
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: my spine. Yeah. But yeah, early days, it was kind

455
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: of a question about whether or not they can make

456
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: it go. And and we should point out, I mean,

457
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: we know this, so you guys who are furiously typing

458
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: on your on your laptops, take a moment, or your

459
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: smartphones or tablets, whatever, take a moment. We know that

460
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 1: the Kindle was not the first e reader, wasn't even

461
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 1: the first e ink e reader, but it was one

462
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: that had an enormous company behind it, a company known

463
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: for distributing books, so it also had a huge library

464
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: of e books already available so so they had a

465
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: distinct advantage over other companies that sold you the hardware

466
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: but didn't have access to the actual content. This is

467
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 1: selling you the hardware and the content all in one

468
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: big company. So it also opened up huge opportunities for

469
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: e publishing, where where authors could potentially publish a book

470
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: themselves in electronic format and skip the entire publishing industry

471
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: experience altogether. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the book

472
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,719
Speaker 1: will be a success, but it does mean It does

473
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: mean that a book that might not otherwise be published

474
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: because it is too risky or too outside the norm.

475
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: The rest of the Internet has given a huge voice

476
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 1: to people who might not otherwise have have ever gotten

477
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: a soapbox for good or for ill and commoners I'm

478
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,439
Speaker 1: looking at you. But but yeah, if they really started

479
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: shaking things up, yeah, definitely, and um and it would

480
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: continue to do so over the next few years. I

481
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: mean we well, we'll probably do another episode about again

482
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: about Amazon's effects. Yeah, because there's there's a whole lot

483
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: to be said about the impact of electronic publishing on

484
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: the publishing industry as a whole, especially when you get

485
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 1: into the battles about pricing those those got ugly and

486
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: they're still They're still going on. It's not like it's over,

487
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,199
Speaker 1: but it's for a while there it was. It was

488
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: hurting everybody, especially authors and fans of certain authors, my

489
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: wife being one of them. It's a whole Jim Butcher story.

490
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: I'll have to tell when we get to that. But uh.

491
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: They also that year two thousand seven, launched a partnership

492
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: with TiVo, and TiVo of course the DVR for those

493
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: who are who forgot, because Tvo TiVo was like the

494
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: name and DVRs for the longest time. It's kind of

495
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 1: lost a lot of it's ster mainly because there's so

496
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: many other devices out there that incorporate DVR technology that

497
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: TiVo is kind of. And there's also a lot of

498
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: people are getting them straight from their cable provider these days,

499
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 1: and so they don't necessarily have a separate branded Yeah,

500
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: and and and to be fair, also, ti Vo has

501
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 1: a reputation for not updating its operating system as frequently

502
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: as people would like. Uh so, um uh all of

503
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: those things. But back in two thousand seven, Tevo was

504
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: the name. Uh it made entered a partnership with Amazon,

505
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: and Amazon essentially allowed people who subscribed to ti vo

506
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: access to the unboxed videos. So it meant that that,

507
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, if you were an unboxed customer, you could

508
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: get access to thousands of movies and television shows. Um,

509
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: the first quarters sales in two thousand seven past three billion.

510
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: That's billion with a B dollars. That's in the first quarter. Yeah,

511
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: the entire year that year was fourteen point eight billion

512
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: in revenue. That's a lot of money. So um oh

513
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: and oh this is huge, it's huge. Two huge things.

514
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: First of all, September two seven, they launch a public

515
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: beta program of their Amazon MP three program. So this

516
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: is this is Amazon saying okay, Apple, see iTunes, Let's

517
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: see what you're doing there. Let's let's go for it.

518
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: And uh yeah. So then you had the MP three

519
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: battles between Amazon and Apple, which are still going on today.

520
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: Uh and uh yeah. I can tell you that I

521
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: do a lot of comparison shopping. But then they also

522
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: they they purchased the publication rights for a special edition

523
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: version of a particular author's special book. That book is

524
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: The Tales of Beatle the Bard. That author is j. K. Rowling.

525
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: YEA heard her? Yeah, she wrote those Harry Potter books,

526
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: you know, the ones where Frodo has to destroy the Ring. Um. Yeah,

527
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: so you shall not pass thoks I love in the movie.

528
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: Patrick Stewart is still good. He is so good. Yeah,

529
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: as as professor x of of of Dumbledore University. Uh no,

530
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: we actually do know our stuff. We're big Harry Potter fans.

531
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: We're just we're just also enormous dorks. Um. But yeah,

532
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: so J. K. Rowling's Tales of the Beatle of Beatle

533
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: the Bard, which was a special special book that she

534
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: had written that was, you know, connected to the Harry

535
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: Potter universe, but not actually part of their not part

536
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: of the actual story that shows up in the story. Yes,

537
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: kind of meta, Yeah, a little meta. Uh that Now,

538
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: that would not actually go on sale until two thousand eight.

539
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: Amazon purchased the rights in two thousand seven, but two

540
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: thousand eight they get the rights to actually sell the

541
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: collector's edition version of of the Tales of Beatle the Bard.

542
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: And that was the most important thing that happened in

543
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: two They also hit like a four point one billion

544
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: dollars in sales in their first quarter. They also acquired

545
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: a company called Audible. So we've talked about audible on

546
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: this podcast before they acquired a company called fabric dot

547
00:30:56,360 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: com customers out there, they if you were following along

548
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: with our web services. A conversation earlier, they they reached

549
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand developers using their web services. They also

550
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: launched apps on Facebook. So this this is again Amazon

551
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: looking at what is out there, what's working, what what

552
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: are people really getting into, and making sure that they

553
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: have a presence there. They've done this with multiple platforms,

554
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: Facebook being a very important one, but they've also done

555
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: things with Xbox Live and other companies as well. So, uh,

556
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's one of those things that that

557
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: marks a company that's really on the lookout for what

558
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: is it that customers want, because if they're able to

559
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: continue to meet that, then they're going to be a success. Um.

560
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: Moving into two thousand nine, Uh, this was also an

561
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: important part important time for Amazon because in two thousand

562
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: nine we started to see a dramatic decline in demand

563
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: for retail space. This is where retail companies are starting

564
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: to have serious problems. Companies like Circuit City and best

565
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: Buy and uh and even you know, companies like Kmart

566
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, you're looking at more and more

567
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: people shifting their shopping experiences to online online right. Bezos

568
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: has said that nothing is ever going to replace the

569
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: experience of going out and shopping at a physical location,

570
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: and that it may just be that that becomes more

571
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,719
Speaker 1: of an event thing. So there might be for just

572
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: specific types of products and services that you would go

573
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: out to a brick and border store. That's actually absolutely

574
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: true for me. I mean, you know, if I'm looking

575
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: for something local or artistic, then I want to go

576
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: out and kind of look at it and poke at it.

577
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: But if I'm just buying a DVD, I don't want

578
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: to go to Best Buy. Yeah, I'm sort of the

579
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: same way in that. Like the other day, for example, Uh,

580
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: at my house, I have no fewer than four different

581
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: types of lightbulbs because of fixtures in my house. Uh,

582
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: eventually I to have only need for one type of

583
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: light bulb, but right now that's not the case. So

584
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: I whole other episode, I had reached a point where

585
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: I had enough burnt out bulbs that something needed to

586
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: change or else I was going to really injure myself

587
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: while navigating through my house at night. So I went

588
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: on to you know, I could have gone to the

589
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: store and gone down the light bulb aisle. This would

590
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: have had to have been a hardware store because these

591
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: are Halligen halogen bulbs. Yeah. Because I had to buy

592
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: one of those fancy modern houses, um, which I love.

593
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 1: The house is the fixtures that are driving me crazy.

594
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: So I went on Amazon way easier with a couple

595
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: of clicks, I bought a whole bunch of light bulbs

596
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: so I won't have to go shopping again for a

597
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,959
Speaker 1: long time. It will be bright at my house for

598
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: ages to come. Ever. But in two thousand nine, also

599
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: the kindle was the top selling item of the holiday season. Yep.

600
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: And this is also when a trend called show rooming began.

601
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: Showrooming is when customers go into a store and they

602
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: have a smart phone and they used the smartphone to

603
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: take a picture of the stores product. Yeah, yeah, that

604
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,720
Speaker 1: was There were a few there were a few uh

605
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: controversies that year. That was also the year that they

606
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: that Amazon ended up deleting George Orwell from a whole

607
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: bunch of kindles because they realized that the that the

608
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: copy that they had in their store was actually in

609
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: a legal copy that was only only approved for sale

610
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: in Australia, I believe, Yeah, and there was definitely the

611
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: problem was that they could sell Georgia or orwell four

612
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 1: but the version they sold this is kind of weird

613
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: because it's the same words. But then this is this

614
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: is a publishing industry thing. I mean, and you know,

615
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,959
Speaker 1: every publishing company is very proprietary about these sort of things,

616
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 1: and with good reason, because that's how they make their dollars.

617
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: But but yeah, when you consider the content of nineteen

618
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: eighty four and the fact that that was the book

619
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: that gets I liked that a whole lot, and it

620
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: was it was something that happened that you know this

621
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: this actually required a response from Amazon to customers because uh,

622
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: it happened so suddenly and without warning. Really, people just

623
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: wake up one day and one of their titles is deleted.

624
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: It raised the question of hey, don't don't I own

625
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 1: it because I bought I bought a copy. Yeah, and

626
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: the thing is that you you you technically do not

627
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: own that book. That you own that that that you

628
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: have on your kindle. You own the rights to read

629
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: it right now. It's more like renting a book honestly,

630
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: the way that it's worded. Yeah, And and when you

631
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: think about it, that's that's worrisome because you think, well,

632
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: could that rental agreement end some day and suddenly I

633
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: don't have that book anymore. I mean in the series, yes,

634
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,240
Speaker 1: So you know, that's one of the big differences between

635
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: an electronic book and a real book, because it would

636
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: be a much different story if Amazon employees kicked open

637
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: your door and walked to your bookshelf and took a

638
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: physical copy of George Orwell's and said, sea, here's a

639
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: receipt for your receipt and walked out. That was That

640
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: was a reference to the documentary Brazil. Um. Anyway, moving on,

641
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: so yeah, show rooming the whole idea about comparison shopping.

642
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: While you're actually in a physical space, you end up

643
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: taking the picture of the the you know, the code

644
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 1: on the box or whatever, and get a quick look

645
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: to see, okay, well, here's this one product in this store.

646
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: What is it on Amazon? And do I want to

647
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 1: just order it online? Uh? That that has driven stores nuts,

648
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: and in fact, some stores, for example, I'm pretty sure

649
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: Target for has a policy where it will match Amazon's

650
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: price for products. So it's it's become kind of a

651
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 1: battle between Amazon and traditional retail stores. Moving into two

652
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: thousand nine, uh, they announced the fourth quarter sales for

653
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. This happens in early two thousand nine obviously,

654
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: or like each year, at the beginning of the year. UH.

655
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: Once you get into the year, the companies announced the

656
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: results of their last quarter because obviously they can't do

657
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: it during the actual year that happened, because it has happened.

658
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: But the fourth quarter sales for two thousand eight were

659
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: announced at the beginning of two thousand nine, and they

660
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: were six point seven billion dollars, so still making huge sales.

661
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 1: And of course part of this is because Amazon selling

662
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: more and more stuff, just different kinds of stuff, not

663
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: just books and music and movies. Um. They also introduced

664
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: the Kindle too, which and they introduced shopping apps for

665
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: Android and the Kindle app for iOS devices. And they

666
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: acquired a company called Zappos, which made a lot of

667
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: my friends unhappy because they loved Zappos and they loved

668
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: its independent spirit, and they were worried that that would

669
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: go away once it was acquired by a giant like Amazon,

670
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: or that it would just be incorporated into Amazon, and

671
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:48,479
Speaker 1: Zappos as a thing wouldn't always um. Also we something

672
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: else that's interesting at this point. One of the reasons

673
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: why the kindle was so important to Amazon is we

674
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: were talking about profit margins earlier, about how expensive it

675
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: is to run a business like Amazon. You're talking about huge,

676
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: huge infrastructure, lots of warehouses, lots of employees, equipment, shipping,

677
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: lots of lots of stuff. You have to worry about. Kindle.

678
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: It's an electronic file, so you pay for the equipment

679
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: that it's stored on and the infrastructure that supports that equipment.

680
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 1: But you don't have to worry about shipping. You don't

681
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: have to worry about all those other problems. It's it's

682
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: much cheaper to get electronic uh uh book it is

683
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: to get a physical book. And you know, for example,

684
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: George R. Martin stands with the Dragon's ways approximately what

685
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 1: I do. So you have to shift at somebody. Yeah.

686
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 1: Often I confuse Lauren with the book I'm currently reading,

687
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: and uh, I now realize that when I hear put

688
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: me down, I've accidentally picked up Lauren's awkward. Yeah, it's

689
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: HR has talked to me, so um, yeah, it's It's true.

690
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 1: Also with other forms of digital files, obviously MP three's

691
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: and uh, and instance, streaming movies that kind of thing.

692
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: So Amazon's really helping it. You know, the company is

693
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: doing well in part because people are buying more and

694
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 1: more of the electronic versions of stuff as opposed to

695
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: the physical thing, although they're still buying the physical thing too.

696
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: That's that hasn't changed. Um In they announced their fourth

697
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: quarter sales for for two thousand nine, which was nine

698
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: point five billion dollars. The other thing to keep in

699
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: mind is the fourth quarter tends to be Amazon's best quarter,

700
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: of course, because Christmas happens, holiday holiday shopping, and it's

701
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: always any retailer's biggest quarter. Yeah, and and keep in

702
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: mind also Amazon, while it's making these amazing sales, sometimes

703
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: those profit margins aren't so great simply because Amazon is

704
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: also cutting prices, so they they're actually really big on

705
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: cutting prices there. You know. It's it's one of the things,

706
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that a lot of other physical

707
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:49,319
Speaker 1: big box stores have been driven out of business in

708
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: contribution via Amazon. Right. Yeah, so you've got that's something

709
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: that some critics are upset about with Amazon because they

710
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,280
Speaker 1: feel one that you know, it's it's slowly making Amazon

711
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:06,240
Speaker 1: and monopoly in many in many industries. And two it

712
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,919
Speaker 1: is uh, it hurts shareholders in the sense that they

713
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: Amazon could be making more money if they charged more

714
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: for stuff. Right. Then the counter argument to that as well,

715
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: if you charge more for stuff, fewer people buy it.

716
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: So what's the right balance? Yea. And interestingly, they've also

717
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 1: applied the same concept to their to their web services UM,

718
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: which is a huge part of their business. That again

719
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 1: is the infrastructure that they rent out to other companies

720
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: for use, and and prices of those services were dropping

721
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: pretty dramatically as they streamlined that around the sort of

722
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: time period. UM. Also that year, the sale of e

723
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: books surpassed hardcover sales in July. Yeah, yeah, which that

724
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: that would become, you know, pretty much part for the

725
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 1: course from that point out, they would sell more kindle

726
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,959
Speaker 1: copies of books than physical copies of books. Now, that's

727
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: not necessarily true across all businesses, right, And that's not

728
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 1: to say that there are now more digital copies of

729
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: books being sold then hard copies everywhere. It's simply for

730
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: Amazon and particularly y Yeah. So now granted Amazon's big books,

731
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:13,800
Speaker 1: so it's it's a big story. They also launched Amazon

732
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: Studios in two and this is a This is Amazon's

733
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: attempt to get into content creation. It's an idea where

734
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 1: they partner with content creators, writers who are writing movie

735
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: scripts or television scripts that normally would not get turned

736
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: into actual movies or TV shows because Hollywood is insular

737
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: and there's it's really hard to break into it, right.

738
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you hear like the amazing stories that happened

739
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: where someone gets discovered, like a writer, a writer, something

740
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: gets discovered in Hollywood. But for every one story you hear,

741
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 1: there's a thousand heartbreak stories of people who have the

742
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: best idea but no one will listen to it. Yeah,

743
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: So this is kind of Amazon's approach to letting content

744
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: creators get a chance at seeing their stuff come to life.

745
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: So in order to be part of it, you have

746
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: to actually create an account and submit stuff, and they

747
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: have very specific um uh parameters that you have to

748
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: fit within in order to be part of it. So

749
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: it's not like you just sent in a script and

750
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: you're you're good to go. It's there's more to it.

751
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:18,919
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more complicated than they're kindle self

752
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: publishing model or not Kindle, but self publishing model. Right.

753
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: And then Amazon also invested a hundred and seventy five

754
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 1: million dollars in a company called Living Social. So this

755
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: is Amazon's attempt to get in on a game that

756
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: looked like it was threatening companies like Amazon. So companies

757
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: like group Me and Living Social which have these special deals,

758
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: usually their regional deals that apply to you if you

759
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: happen to live within a certain area and you get

760
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 1: a you know, merchants or service providers or whatever will

761
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: enter into it an agreement where you get for reduced price,

762
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: essentially a voucher for something. Um And and there was

763
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: a there was a time where people were genuinely concerned

764
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: that these companies would topple retail establishments or at least

765
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: really hurt the bottom line. But it turned out that

766
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: it's really hard to make money with that business model. So, um,

767
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 1: this might be one of those sort of missteps where

768
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: where Amazon makes was perhaps not yeah yeah, maybe it

769
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: wasn't the best idea. They reached seventeen billion dollars in sales. Um,

770
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money. They also released the Kindle

771
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:34,359
Speaker 1: Fire tablet, which it was it was a strong competitor

772
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: because it was seen as a tablet device that could

773
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: compete with the iPad, not you know, spec for spec,

774
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: but because it was just in color, it was a

775
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: touch screen, and it was way cheaper. Yeah, way cheaper

776
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: thing that I've had. I mean, I think at the

777
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: time that I had was still it's like bucks or

778
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 1: something like that, right, and then and the fire debut,

779
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: I think at about two hundred I want to say

780
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: that that is I may king that up, but I

781
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: I feel like it was. It was. It was a

782
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: couple It was a couple of hundred dollars less than

783
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: the guy I Pad was, and it was seen as

784
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: such a low cost cost alternative that a lot of

785
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: people who wanted a tablet but didn't want to invest

786
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: that much money in an iPad decided to give it

787
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: a try. And also, I mean it was a smart

788
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: idea for Amazon because again, the tablet essentially acts as

789
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,240
Speaker 1: a portal for all of Amazon's content. So everything Amazon

790
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:31,959
Speaker 1: sells works really well on the Amazon Kindle Fire. So uh,

791
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: you know, really, when you think about it, the tablet,

792
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: they were selling those essentially either at cost or even

793
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 1: at a loss, in order to sell you more e

794
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 1: books and more video and music down exactly. Yeah, They're like, well,

795
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: we'll make it up in content, which you know again

796
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,239
Speaker 1: because it's digital content has a much lower cost of

797
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: distribution than physical stuff. This way, this way, we are

798
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: bringing about the digital revolution and we will make so

799
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: much money. Yeah, yes, yes, and and for for perspective,

800
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: Borders that was two thousand eleven was the year that

801
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: Borders announced their complete liquidation, so total, said Trombone. That

802
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 1: was also the year they introduced Prime Instant Videos, so

803
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: you could stream certain videos if you were a Prime member.

804
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: You could also rent or buy videos through Prime Instant

805
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: Prime as well, so you could watch those for for

806
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: a fee. But there were there are lots of them

807
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: that were available free for Prime users to watch. So

808
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 1: again Prime is a subscription service, so you had to

809
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 1: pay into it first, but you could watch all these

810
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: other things for free once you were a member. They

811
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: also introduced Amazon Cloud Drive and and cloud players, so

812
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: this was the customer facing. This is when when you

813
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 1: and I could end up taking advantage of Amazon storage

814
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: space online. Uh. And also you could buy digital albums

815
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,239
Speaker 1: they would get stored in your cloud drive. You could

816
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 1: upload stuff to the cloud drive, but there was a

817
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: certain limit, a certain number of gigabytes of stuff you

818
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: could upload butt in there. Yeah, you're good to go.

819
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: You could listen to it from from anywhere, any any

820
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: device that could connect to it. But also if you

821
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: bought it directly from Amazon, it did not count against

822
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 1: your limit. So if you bought and if you but

823
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: I think it was if you bought a full album

824
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: from Amazon, you would get upgraded to the next level

825
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: of the cloud service. So it gave you an incentive

826
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: again to shop through Amazon. So it wasn't like, you know,

827
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: they were just being altruistic. They had a good reason

828
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: to do this. They also announced my Habit dot com,

829
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: which those personalized shots. Yeah, I vaguely, I vaguely remember.

830
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: I ocusually get emails from them that I look at

831
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: and I think I am not nearly attractive enough to

832
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: wear that clothing. They then began to uh. They launched

833
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: Amazon Local, which again very regionalized kind of a service,

834
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:52,319
Speaker 1: and they also well, they had the Amazon Silk web

835
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: browser which was part of Amazon Fire. UH. That was

836
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: shown as being really fast, but some people had some

837
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: issues with it. UH. And they introduced the Kindle Owners

838
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: Lending Library, where you could borrow books on your Kindle

839
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 1: and not have to buy them if you want to

840
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: just read it, which was kind of cool. Again, that

841
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: was one of those things that you had to be

842
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: a prime that was a prime perk moving into that's

843
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: when they released the Kindle fire HD. Uh. They acquired

844
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: Kiva Systems Incorporated. Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the nonprofit. No, no,

845
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 1: that's the other other word. Opposite of nonprofit. Kiva was

846
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: Kiva was. I know where you're going, but it's a

847
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: different company. I'm going to I'm going to put you

848
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: out of your misery. Actually, Tiva is a company that

849
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 1: makes robots like those. Yeah. They these are the ones

850
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: that made the automated material Handling system. Oh okay, excellent. Yeah.

851
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: So yeah, when you when an order comes in, the

852
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: robot goes and picks up the appropriate shelf. That like,

853
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: they picks up the entire shelf. The shelves are designed

854
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 1: so that they are the same dimensions. Yeah, they're the

855
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: same dimensions as the robot. So the robot, because everything

856
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: belongs on its own shelf, and every shelf belongs in

857
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: a specific spot within the warehouse, the robot goes to

858
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: the right spot. I'm gonna keep saying it that way. No,

859
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get lots of emails I'm gonna stop. So

860
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 1: the robot goes to that spot and then uses a

861
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: screw drive to lift the top of the robot. So

862
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the shelf, the top of the

863
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,760
Speaker 1: robot is not moving at all the but the the

864
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: robot ends up using the screw driver to lift the

865
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:39,359
Speaker 1: top of the of it. This platform that goes from

866
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: the robot up until it hits the bottom of the

867
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: shelf lifts the shelf up, so now the robot is

868
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 1: physically lifting the shelf off the floor, and then the

869
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: robot wheels the entire shelf over to the packing area,

870
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: where a human being grabs the product off the shelf

871
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: and takes it to pack it up. Meanwhile, the robot

872
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: return the shelf to the appropriate place in the warehouse.

873
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 1: This is there are hundreds of robots in these warehouses,

874
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:11,399
Speaker 1: and they're all working independently and interdependently with each other

875
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 1: so that they don't collide. They know the system knows

876
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 1: where every robot is, and every robot knows where every

877
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: robot is, so they move in this incredibly efficient manner

878
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: and make it way easier for fewer people to pack

879
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: more stuff in a warehouse and fulfill those Amazon dot

880
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: Com orders. So it's kind of, um, it's kind of

881
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 1: awesome to see. And then at the same time you

882
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 1: think robots are going to take all our jobs. Well,

883
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: at the same time, I mean, I've read there's been

884
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 1: a couple of really good essays that have been published.

885
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: I think the one it was called I was a

886
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: Warehouse wage Slave. It was excellent published on mother Jones

887
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: and uh, and yeah, just just detail this one journalists,

888
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,240
Speaker 1: uh inside experience of working for that kind of giant

889
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: amalgamated shipping website thing, and and you know, the sort

890
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: of the sort of man tory over time, twelve hour days,

891
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: five days a week, fifteen minute breaks. You have to

892
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: imagine that during the holidays, it's going to be particularly hillish.

893
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: It's not good. Yeah, and you know, getting fired for

894
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: things like taking a day off, Yeah, that's tough. Robots,

895
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,720
Speaker 1: as it turned out, do not need very many coffee breaks,

896
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: and they rarely take days off unless they're no longer running.

897
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: They complain less about having to run fifteen miles a

898
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: day across a warehouse floor, but they will eventually override

899
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 1: us and enslave us. Um they that year last last

900
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: last year, last year, recording this podcast. Um. They also

901
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: had Amazon Studios announced that it was going to develop

902
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: series exclusively for Amazon Instant Video, which kind of puts

903
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: it on par with Netflix, which is also developing content

904
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: exclusively for Netflix. So with Netflix, you've got like the

905
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: big title has me excited? Is arrested development, arrested developments

906
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 1: coming back new season on Netflix. Well, Amazon is looking

907
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:04,280
Speaker 1: into creating the content that it was soliciting with Amazon

908
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,320
Speaker 1: Studios into these various series and movies, offering them on

909
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,399
Speaker 1: Amazon Instant Video. And the idea is that this will

910
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: give you the option to see stuff that you otherwise

911
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 1: never would get a chance, and hopefully some of it

912
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: will be amazing. I'm sure. I'm sure quite a few

913
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 1: titles will end up being really interesting and exciting to watch.

914
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 1: And I say that knowing that the majority of the

915
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 1: stuff I come across on Netflix is not. And what's

916
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 1: interesting about this competition actually is that Netflix uses Amazon's

917
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: web services to run I think that they're one of

918
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: their larger, larger clients. Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, you know,

919
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:50,279
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting experience to see the competitor using

920
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: your own service. Um, and then moving up to to

921
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: our current year. Uh. The only note I wrote down

922
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 1: is that the current stock price as of the recording

923
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: of this podcasts and just before we came in here

924
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 1: was around two sixty four dollars a share. So if

925
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: you remember when we started this podcast, it was down

926
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: to just under six dollars per share. It's back up

927
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: to two four dollars per share. It has not split

928
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 1: since the dot com crash, but there was a there

929
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: was a long time where the stock price was in

930
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: the the ten to twenty dollar per share range, and

931
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: then over the last few years, especially as the publishing

932
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:32,479
Speaker 1: stuff started taking off, the value of the company has

933
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,799
Speaker 1: gone up quite a bit. So it's it's it's an

934
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 1: interesting story. I mean, they were way on top before

935
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: the dot com crash. They went, you know, as far

936
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 1: as the market value of the company went. They they

937
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: sunk pretty low and then they rose back up. And uh,

938
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 1: you know, it's interestingly a lot of during the fourth

939
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: quarter of pcent of the units sold on Amazon were

940
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,840
Speaker 1: by third party sellers, so they're kind of starting to

941
00:52:55,880 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: move away from selling things themselves become like a like

942
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 1: a most you know, a middleman, yeah, a platform for

943
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:06,280
Speaker 1: selling things, which makes sense. Amazon has a huge reach.

944
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:09,879
Speaker 1: So it makes sense from a merchant standpoint, because you're

945
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:12,720
Speaker 1: going to reach way more potential customers than you would

946
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: with your own site, because you know that requires people

947
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 1: actually know about you before they start shopping. This way

948
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 1: they can find out about your stuff on Amazon and

949
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: fewer and fewer people. Uh, this is anecdotal. I shouldn't

950
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: say this is not scientific. Anecdotally, I know that from

951
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: my group of friends, a few people are really they

952
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 1: don't really care where the product they buy comes from

953
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: when they buy it on Amazon, and they're not looking

954
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 1: at the name of the vendor. They're looking at, Oh,

955
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Here's how much it costs. Here's if

956
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: it's a prime eligible thing. One click, give me that

957
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:51,399
Speaker 1: thing that I want. Um, I've got a little bit.

958
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 1: Here's another kind of interesting fact. So during the time

959
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs came back to Apple, you know he

960
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 1: was were stout of the company, came back in the

961
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: mid nineties, brought Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy

962
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:10,400
Speaker 1: to great success. UH investors achieved a return of sixty

963
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: six point eight times their money that they invested. During

964
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos's tenure at Amazon, shareholders achieved a return of

965
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: one D twenty four point three times their money. Yeah,

966
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,360
Speaker 1: so nearly twice as much. Yeah, it's it's which is

967
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: one of those reasons why a lot of like like

968
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: Forbes has called Bezos the best performing CEO ever at

969
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:40,879
Speaker 1: least of this current era and that Uh, and that's

970
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 1: the reason why is because of stuff like that and

971
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: bezos his philosophy. It's very interesting if you were to

972
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 1: ask Bezos about the competitors to Amazon. Uh, he he

973
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: doesn't talk about them at all. He does not acknowledge them,

974
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:58,719
Speaker 1: like no matter which industry you're talking about. And his

975
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 1: philosophy is this is quote from him, whatever your set

976
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: of competitors competitors is today is transitory. You'd have to

977
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,319
Speaker 1: change your strategy all the time. So his his view

978
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: is that you just gotta do what you do as

979
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: well as you possibly can and don't pay any mind

980
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:19,760
Speaker 1: to the competitors because that's just a distraction. So yeah,

981
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,320
Speaker 1: it's it's an incredible story, it's and it's a pretty

982
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,919
Speaker 1: amazing company. H in that you know, you look at

983
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: the the rise and fall and rise again. Um, it's

984
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see what goes on in the future, because,

985
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,279
Speaker 1: like you said, they could potentially get out of the

986
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 1: whole why do we have this warehouse thing and just

987
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:45,799
Speaker 1: be be like a middleman, right right, Yeah, they're they're

988
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: already doing that for so many corporations. But their infrastructure

989
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: that it's their their web services are a multibillion dollar

990
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:53,839
Speaker 1: business at this point. Yeah, So, I mean that's where

991
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: a lot of the value of the company is coming from.

992
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,320
Speaker 1: That in the digital products are really shaping the world

993
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: as we know it. So we'll probably do an episode

994
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:05,840
Speaker 1: that kind of talks more in detail about Amazon's impact. Uh,

995
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: maybe we'll We'll we'll split it up a little bit

996
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: and give you some other episodes first, so that you're

997
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: not amazon out all of what's or amazone as I

998
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:17,960
Speaker 1: like to say, Amazon as I just invented. You just

999
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: did that thing, that was the thing that just happened. Okay,

1000
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:21,919
Speaker 1: so let's wrap this up. Guys. If you have any

1001
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:24,720
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, I highly recommend

1002
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:27,200
Speaker 1: you let us know in an email. Our address is

1003
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a

1004
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter or handle at both those

1005
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: locations is text Stuff hs W and Lauren and I

1006
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon for more on

1007
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how staff

1008
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:48,360
Speaker 1: works dot com