When discussing M2M I find it interesting how things are categorized. The use of GPS in a phone is not in the same category as the single purpose device. The use of RFID, NFC and QR gets segmented. Often when I ask the analysts about the bigger picture they tell me, “That’s beyond the scope of this study.” So my nature is to take these studies with a grain of salt because the cross elastics are greater than the study indicates.

In the case of e-readers, I want to say they are missing the mark entirely, here is why; before the tablets started rolling out, the reports about e-readers were on the non - phone category. In effect, if it was not a phone it was a machine in the minds of many people. Additionally, the Kindle had a sweet deal where usage was flat and embedded in the cost of the device. So the category of other personal devices was lumped in with other flat rate solutions.

While recognizing that billing is often the number one drive for doing the analysis, it often skews the analysis. Minutes of use has been the constant in carrier cost analysis in the past and a device that does have that unit of measure is “outside the scope” for many bottom line discussions.

But the problem is, we are using our phones differently. The phones are “smarter” because they do more than just talk and text. According to Mary Meeker we are now at a point where nearly half of our time on a phone is doing something other than communication services- this includes e-mail, games, reading, socializing, watching video, etc.

And this is where I am making my case that e-readers are not a machine to machine type of solution, but an extension of our phone usage. More importantly it belongs with the category of social media.    

Because reading is not as single a purpose as you would expect. I have lots of anecdotes here which prove that I will never analyze something in a compartment. Here we go…

• My wife joins a book club and can not find the book they are reading so she takes out her iPad and orders it from Amazon (small blessings).
• Our daughter takes my Kindle and loads up her text books for her study abroad program before leaving, changing the amount of luggage she is carrying by about ten pounds.
• I sit with my partners talking about DevCon5 and the latest book from one of our authors and we go to the e-reader to compare with the “real” book.

The point here is that every single activity was not about a machine it was involved with human interaction.   This is not M2M because it’s about the richness of communication. E-readers are part of the change in our communication behavior and need to be seen across devices; e-readers, phones, tablets, and whatever else comes along (e.g. the Kurzweil 3000), should not be considered separate from human communication. The wireless operator needs to see our changes in behaviors not in the machines case.

The realities are simple. People use machines to share information and in that way e-readers are like many M2M devices. However, something that is used to connect to our senses is not the same as something connecting to sensors.

By the way just out of curiosity, on what device are you reading this? Ping me and let me know.