There seems to be an awful lot of excitement these days about NetBooks – small (miniaturized?) notebook computers that provide users with enough power and features to surf the Web, check e-mail, do word processing, edit photos, etc.
I’m personally not in the market for a new laptop but if a computer maker was looking to seize a market niche, it would be interesting to see someone create a BlogBook – a notebook designed and aimed at bloggers.
It would come with Firefox pre-installed with some cool plugins (e.g. Zemanta), a blog publishing tool (Microsoft Live Writer), a user-friendly photo-editing tool, a publishing tool such as Digsby, perhaps a FTP client, and a 30-day free account for Boingo.
The BlogBook would be the perfect computing companion for people who wants a lightweight, powerful machine to blog/do social media on the go.
So, what do you think? Would there be enough of a market to make a BlogBook viable?
Update: Walter Mossberg has a story on how the NetBook is coming into its own. Maybe some smart NetBook maker will let people order customized versions to meet their needs be it blogging, Web surfing, e-mail, photography, travel. David Zatz has jumped on the NetBook bandwagon by buying a My Wind that will serve two purposes: a mobile blogging platform and portable video player.
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I just bought an AspireOne on the weekend and love it so far. I got a Linux based one because I just couldn’t see myself needing Windows XP on this thing.
I could totally see custom distros being used as a selling feature. A blog book would be a great idea.
The market is too small
Neat idea, but yeah the market is somewhat limited. You’d need a huge percentage of the bloggers to make a hardware device feasible.
Actually, how about if you find common netbook hardware and do a custom distribution pre-loaded with a toolset. You could do customized distributions for bloggers, travellers, photographers, grandmothers (find a better name), etc.
Someone run with this!
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[...] Evans’ idea for a BlogBook is a great one—How About a BlogBook? | Mark Evans—, but you don’t have to wait for marketing geniuses to create one, it’s pretty simple to just [...]
Yeah Joetek’s point is good… an existing netbook manufacturer simply customizes the product with software suited to a specific market…
good excuse for manufacturers to stark loading crapware onto computers again =P
i just bought the toshiba portege – it’s an ultra portable that weighout s less than 2 pounds. although the keyboard layout is a bit annoying, the lightening fast HD makes this a perfect on-road companion.. including for bloggers on the go
gone are the days of carrying around a massive laptop. between my ultraportable and my mobile devices, i’m truly mobile & can work anywhere
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