BEST OF THE WEB: Why Amazon chief Jeff Bezos is playing the long-term game

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos is an eccentric personality, with several curious endeavours. One of his latest is the construction of a 10,000 year clock in Texas, which is currently being built as a type of tourist destination.

And Bezos has put $US42 million of his own money into the project – one that is designed to tell time for the next 10,000 years. 

It’s the perfect metaphor for what Bezos is doing in business. He’s been the subject of a lot of analysis lately. With his internet giant attempting to take on Apple, its cloud services now powering most of the web and a retail empire that’s arguably the biggest online, Bezos is fighting wars on several fronts.

But there’s a reason why the company is so successful, and there’s a specific reason why Bezos is attacking all these different areas.

Over at The Economist, there’s an in-depth analysis of Bezos and what exactly he’s been doing lately, and it all goes back to his first shareholder letter in which he said, “it’s all about the long term”.

Amazon has moved slowly, moving from books into general retail with revenue of $US48 billion from a variety of different divisions. This all comes from his attempt to see exactly where the market is heading – this applies to retail, to cloud computing, and to tablets.

After all, Amazon was questioned when it started moving into cloud computing and offered its services to tech firms. Almost in the same way Apple was criticised by some over the iPad. But it’s an investment that paid off big time.

And speaking of Apple, this piece suggests that Bezos is going after the tech giant in a number of different areas, including smartphones and bricks and mortar stores.

Bezos’ foresight applied to the design of the Kindle as well, which the founder said needed to be used without owning a computer. Just as Apple is touting its “post-PC” world, the Kindle was the first device that didn’t need to be plugged into a computer to operate. It’s all in the cloud.

“Staying on top in the fast-changing world of technology is hard, too. Mr Bezos is bound to be the target of more criticism as his company’s hefty investments in new areas continue to put a dent in its bottom line,” The Economist says.

“His next move could be into smartphones or a video-streaming service that competes with Netflix, but it is just as likely to be something entirely unexpected.”

Bezos may not be the next Steve Jobs, but he’s certainly got his eye on the industry – whatever Amazon does, it’s sure to be huge.

The rise and rise of Pinterest

Pinterest – it’s the latest big thing and, like most up and coming networks, most people don’t even know what it is yet.

Need a primer? Then you should read this piece over at the New York Times, which takes a look at exactly what Pinterest is doing and how it’s finding success.

The company offers users different types of “boards” where they collect images of anything, including products, and then share them with friends and strangers. When you put something on your board, you “pin” it.

As chief executive and founder Ben Silbermann says, the site wanted to attract a number of different demographics, creative types mostly. And now traffic has exploded, with 16.1 million unique visitors in the United States alone.

As the piece says, there’s a lot of investor interest, never mind that there isn’t much of a business model yet. And even though no one’s quite sure what they’ve got here, Nielsen senior vice president for analytics Radha Subramanyam says there’s definitely a lot of activity here.

“The Pinterest audience is the same audience that shops online, which is very unique,” she said, which “could very quickly translate these interests into transaction opportunities”.

The problem of mobile privacy

The issue of online privacy has been at the forefront of mobile development over the past year, and it’s only going to get more important. With the amount of scandals regarding privacy now seemingly increasing every month, it’s essential for developers to get a legal grip on what they’re doing.

This piece over at Mashable explains five key legal concerns for developers, including the increased legal focus on app privacy, and how they should attack them all.

Some of them are fairly simple, such as not collecting more data than you need, but some are complicated, such as being able to protect all the information you collect – which can be tricky.

“Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to read stories about major companies who experience data breaches.”

“Data breaches can be costly to address and they may result in lasting damage to your brand. If you are collecting information from consumers, you need to ensure you have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect that information.”

This is for an American audience, but Australian developers will still get a lot of use out of these well thought-out warnings.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is no more – at least on paper

You’re probably familiar with the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a volume of reference books that have been staples in homes and libraries for years. Now they’re going out of print.

With the rise of Wikipedia and the internet in general, there’s just no need for a set of expensive, printed reference books anymore.

However, it’s not all over. As this piece in the New York Times suggests, there’s quite substantial demand for an online version – and the company is taking this change in its stride.

“It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” Encyclopaedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz said. “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The website is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”

Some might say this is another “victim” of the internet, but as far as the company itself is concerned, this is just another step in its 200+ year history.