Amazon today officially announced that it will launch an MP3 only digital music store later this year with tracks from more than 12,000 record labels including EMI’s entire catalog.
Build Your Own Amazon.com
My friend Scott Beale is taking a little heat over at his blog Laughing Squid for promoting Amazon’s latest offering to let bloggers and others build online stores where they can promote the products and artists that they support.
Will Blogosphere Force Amazon to Withdraw Lawsuit?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been caught saying one thing and doing another. According to ZDNet, while Bezos was chatting at the Web 2.0 conference and promoting his company’s S3 hosting service to the crowd, he was quietly suing the pants off of Alexaholic.
Amazon Unveils New Indie Store
Amazon evidently wants you to “Go Indie”; a new music store of that name has been launched, and it features some tempting price cuts over regular items.
Amazon got 30 different music companies to work with it on this project. To be honest, I didn’t recognize any of them (guess I’m not indie enough), but some of the more interesting names are Alligator Records, Bloodshot Records, Epitaph, Fat Possum, Hellcat, Matador, Smithsonian Folkways, Vagrant, and Yep Roc.
Amazon Contextual Links Warning
Amazon Contextual Links has launched in beta – actually a good job it is beta because I have already noticed a few bugs just by visiting one blog that was discussing the news.
Amazon Schools Customers on eCommerce
Recently, Amazon carried a ‘buy one, get one free’ promotion on DVD box sets for its customers. Due to a technical problem, however, customers were able to ‘get one free, get another free’ instead. After the fact, Amazon is looking to recoup those funds, which is rubbing customers the wrong way.
From the “Ways to Irritate Your Customer Base” school of online commerce, Amazon is poised to lecture business students regarding the finer points of customer service and building consumer trust.
Why’s My Free eBook For Sale On Amazon?
Well-known marketing author, Seth Godin, doesn’t want you to buy his new book for sale on Amazon. First off, it’s not new. Godin published it in 2005. Second, he published it as an e-book and offered it for free download on his website.
So where did this $9.99 copy of Everyone’s an Expert (About Something) come from? It appears to be a company called BN Publishing, which has an eBay store as well. Godin’s book available in print form, distributed and promoted by Amazon, was news to him too.
Tracking Amazon Sales Rank, Obtaining Accurate Estimates
I have been a published author for over seven years now and if there is one thing I can’t stand about the industry its waiting!
Amazon Launches Amapedia
Integrating user-generated submissions with existing content is one of the hottest new trends these days, mostly thanks to the success of Wikipedia. Now Amazon is jumping on the bandwagon with its launch of Amapedia; a wiki intended to serve as a companion to its extensive product catalog.
Beta Testing Amazon Clickriver
I got my invite to beta test Clickriver today. Yippie. I already set up my account, so lets see how long it takes Amazon to start showing my ads for things like my name and search engine optimization.