[cmchien]

Re: the Starbucks effect, I'm not sure I agree. I think the difference between Starbucks moving in next door and Apple implementing a feature like Reading List is that in the case of Starbucks moving in next door, their marketing drives foot traffic to the vicinity of your location--which you can then take advantage of. I.e., people walking by see your signage and therefore you can capture sales. It is the creation of demand, but it's the creation of demand that your own (much less resourced marketing) can then take advantage of.

In the Reading List case, there's no guarantee that customers that "get educated" about the product will necessarily ever find out about yours. It's still up to you to be in the same "location" as the competitor's product in order to benefit from their marketing.

This may be the case for very well-known products that are always going to be discussed in concert with a feature launched by an Apple in the media, product reviews, etc. But it's certainly not categorically the case.