New article on Seeking Alpha: Groupon versus Amazon: Similarities and Differences in Creating Value

My new article "Groupon versus Amazon: Similarities and Differences in Creating Value" is available on Seeking Alpha. It is in the Editor's pick of the day.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/307899-groupon-vs-amazon-similarities-and-differences-in-creating-value

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

A good interview of Amazon's CEO

This is a good interview of Wired with Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos about the company new products and its future.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfcomAnalysis

Facebook more profitable than Amazon?

According to Michael Arrington, Founder of TechCrunch, Facebook is going to be more profitable than Amazon this year because of its high profit margin (50%), and high revenues growth. Amazon will have around $40B in revenues while Facebook will have around $4B in 2011, but both will have around $2B in profits. Market valuations are $107B for Amazon and $75B for Facebook.

Zynga, the online game company will make its IPO in the coming weeks. It is still very dependant on the business model of Facebook. Zynga has right now a $11.7B private market valuation.

Source:
http://uncrunched.com/2011/10/24/facebook-will-probably-be-more-profitable-than-amazon-this-year/

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Inbtelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

Amazon competing with publishers, not just bookstores

There was an interesting article in the NY Times about the new strategy of Amazon concerning publishing. They are more and more competing, not only with bookstores, but also with publishers. They are cutting the middleman by signing publishing contracts directly with authors. With the proliferation of tablets, ebooks are more popular than ever. Amazon can control most of the value chain: the reading device the Kindle Fire and the distribution online channel.

Amazon just started giving all authors, whether it publishes them or not, direct access to the Nielsen BookScan sales data, which records how many physical books they are selling in individual markets (cities). It represents a one-on-one communication between authors and their fans that used to happen only on book tours. Recently, Amazon made an obscure German historical novel a best seller without a single professional review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?pagewanted=all

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com