Do We Really Own eBooks?

This week I read Seth Godin's Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus on Vook.  I really enjoyed the material, and I absolutely loved experiencing the content as a blend of text, video, and hyperlinks.  This is my first time purchasing an eBook (I've read a few free pdfs) and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience.

But I still won't be buying eBooks.  Not yet anyway.  Many people in cyberspace have proclaimed the death of bookstores, but don't be too sure.  It may cost me more money to buy a paperback, but it's completely mine.  I can reread it as often as I want.  I can loan it to a friend.  I can give it away if I want.

eBooks are cheaper than physical books and more convenient to purchase.  Click a button and it's on the screen of your eReader in seconds.  You can still reread your books, unless you don't want to keep your current eReader.  What if you purchased Linchpin for your Kindle last fall?  Will you still use your Kindle when the iPad comes out?  What happens if you buy the iPad and something new comes out in a year?  Does all of the content you bought become worthless?

Last fall I bought Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion at a local Barnes and Noble.  Not long after I bought The 4-Hour Workweek from Amazon.com.  Barnes and Noble didn't make me give back Influence.  I still have it, and I've gone to it for reference at least once after reading it.

Until eBook sellers figure out how to let customers own the material they buy physical book will still have their share of buyers, including me.

Any avid eBook readers please feel free to comment!

Should Companies Focus on New or Existing Customers?

I've read two very interesting articles this week about customer focus:

In Keep Those Customers! on Inc.com Howard Greenstein says that companies focus so much of their energies on obtaining new customers that they ignore the customers they already have.  Christopher Penn, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation at Blue Sky Factory Email Marketing, quantifies this perspective:

A good marketer in general can move 10% of the attention they create into qualified leads. With good customer retention, good service, good product, you have a huge amount of control about keeping your customers. They’re yours to lose.

Not everyone agrees.  In Dear Catalog CEOs: New Customers, Kevin Hillstrom at MineThatData.com points out that no matter how customer-centric your company is there will always be customer turnover.  He addresses the idea of building customer loyalty directly:

If there were easy ways to increase customer loyalty, everybody would be doing it and loyalty would dramatically improve and the economy wouldn't be a mess, right?

His suggestion: "Focus a disproportionate amount of time and energy on finding new customers."  His point is that there are far more ways for companies to acquire new customers than ways for them to improve their customer retention rates.

A successful company should strive to both earn new customers and to please existing customers, but often resources are spread thin.  Which should be the priority?  Should companies give the majority of their focus to existing customer relationships or to creating new customers?