Print This Post Print This Post

Nov

25

The Kindle versus Playaway – remember Playaway?


The Kindle – is this anything like this thing, Playaway, from the NEO guys?

Variations on a similar theme maybe – I’m not sure that they are even the same theme, not exactly anyway. Except for the portability and the electronic aspects.

As for the remembering part? I just spent 20 minutes trying to dig up the Playaway – I googled audio, ebooks, invent, Ohio, Henry Gomez and several other phrases. In the end, knowing that the Plain Dealer’s blog lists are pretty stale, I figured I’d go to cleveland.com and sure enough, when I clicked on the “more business” off of the front page of cleveland.com? And then clicked on “bright ideas” underneath the lefthand sidebar called “Special Reports”? There is the Playaway Series – near the top of the righthand column.

And yet that series is almost more than two years old. The Playaway blog by Chris Seper ends on 11/14/05. Here’s info on the current Findaway Team. The Sedona Public Library is using them. This library too. And this one.

The “what they’re saying” is pretty old. But here are some “what we’re saying” links from the Playaway’s website.

Given the Kindle’s intro and the Playaway’s local angle, maybe someone should do a follow-up? Or something?

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:02 am November 25th, 2007 in Business, Cleveland+, Culture, Economy, Marketing, Media, Ohio, Tech 

Comments

5 Responses to “The Kindle versus Playaway – remember Playaway?”

  1. 1 ohdave on November 25th, 2007 3:35 pm

    Just wrote a grant to buy some playaways… Should I rethink it?

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on November 25th, 2007 9:15 pm

    Hi Dave – I don’t know much about either product, but as soon as I heard the story on the Kindle last week, I remembered the Playaway (although not by name) and wondered, “whatever happened to…”

    By all means, I hope you get some and then let us know if they’re worth it! It does look as though some institutions (libraries in particular) like them.

  3. 3 Chris Seper on November 26th, 2007 3:42 pm

    I am not as up on Playaway as I was back then, but I’ve kept an eye on it (I’ve since switched jobs at The PD – twice!). I’d say the Kindle and Playaway are dramatically different products. The Kindle is text, the Playaway is a self-contained audiobook.

    I know there was talk of adding video to the Playaway line way back when, but never take over as an e-reader.

    They’ve moved a lot of their production from Mexico and overseas to NEO, and Playaway has found a consistent spot in the audiobook space.

    I can’t speak for the company, but I bet they’d give an enterprising blogger a tour of their space.

  4. 4 Christopher Celeste on November 26th, 2007 9:51 pm

    Hi there and thanks for remembering us.

    The truth is that Playaway is alive and well and thriving. We have doubled every year since introducing the product in 2005 and will end 2007 having built and shipped out more than 400,000 Playaways from our location here in NEO. We have signed 55 publishers on board who have provided us with more than 1200 titles to date. And after two years of hard work by a team that now numbers north of 50 people, Playaway can be found in 1,000+ retail locations nationwide, as well as more than 6,000+ public libraries and schools.

    As consistent cheerleaders for NEO innovation we would gladly provide any of our corporate neighbors (or interested bloggers) with a tour of our facility in Solon.

    Hope that brief update confirms for you that not only are we still around, but we are still having fun, still growing and still trying to deliver a great product experience for audiobook lovers all across the country.

    Thanks – Christopher Celeste, Founder & President

  5. 5 Field Trip announcement and Playaway update | Writes Like She Talks on November 27th, 2007 10:31 am

    [...] The Kindle versus Playaway – remember Playaway? [...]

Leave a Reply




"));