A Branded Cloud

I just finished reading an article in the NY Times, Amazon Introduces a Digital Music Locker. At first I felt myself becoming critical - thinking, is Amazon just trying to be Apple with their iTunes? How is this really benefiting their brand goals?  Are they starting to forget about their eCommerce business?

But it was that last question that made me start to turn my criticism around.  Maybe this is the next step for eCommerce.

In fact, I could start to see Amazon's "Digital Music Locker" simply become the "Amazon Digital Locker".  More people are buying their content in digital form over physical from, because let's face it, having less stuff is more as an increasing number of people have less space and are becoming more mobile.

Amazon has a unique opportunity over competitors like Apple (who would have ever thought an online book retailer would be a competitor to a computer software company...I love how digital is really muddying the waters and making a clear and focused understanding of your brand purpose so essential! But I digress...)

As I was saying, Amazon is unique in that they distribute the content and don't create the device. You see Apple creates the devices and a reason to select the devices is for the added services like iTunes, iBooks, and all those other beautiful Apple services that come together to form the complete brand experience. But some people aren't tied to one device, or one device manufacturer, so enter Amazon and its digital locker - who is properly positioned to make people's content purchases device agnostic (ignoring for a moment the Kindle) and available wherever they need it.  I'm still not sure about the idea of uploading all your existing content, but that's not the point of this post.

The point is, maybe this is the future of eCommerce - storage - a branded cloud if you will. A place where people can buy and store their purchases so they can access it anywhere and any time creating one more reason to choose a brand over another.

But I want to be clear, this is a value-add service, which can be mimicked by others. So the delivery of the service and how it substantiates the overall purpose of the brand is what will differentiate it from the competition.