Amazon to use drones? Great example of Blue-Sky PR

Amazon announced that it plans, in the future, to use drones to deliver packages.

Ok, let me first say, kudos Amazon! I love blue-sky marketing and PR. Ever since the dot-com crash over 10 years ago, blue-sky marketing seems to have disappeared.

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with showing people what your vision for the future is (even if it's unrealistic in the short term). What makes business fascinating is not so much what is available today, but what might be possible tomorrow. Part of what is contributing to this stagnation we see in society today is that no one seems to be dreaming big anymore.

The first step to realizing a dream is to first dream in the first place. That's all blue-sky marketing ever was...sharing your dreams with others.

Having said that, the notion of delivery drones is a bit ridiculous for obvious reasons:

The shipping fees would be pretty high. There's a reason most goods are transported on the ground, it's much easier to roll something along the ground than to propel it through the air. Really it would only be justified for small yet expensive purchases, like a diamond ring for instance (which leads us to our second point).
This would be a dream-come-true for thieves. Just follow the drone, wait for it to land, steal the product.
Environmental issues would crop up with thousands of drones in the sky... birds crashing into the drones and dying, product falling from the sky in such a collision, etc.

That said, if you could circumvent the above problems it's definitely something one could imagine happening in the future.

Either way, it's refreshing to see a company bringing back 'visionary' marketing/PR.

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