Now that Sony's on board, all four of the major music labels are selling DRM-free music on Amazon's MP3 store. Amazon's giving Apple a real run for its money here.
I want a proper e-book reader as much as anyone, but Amazon's Kindle sounds underwhelming (and unfortunately looks, as a friend put it, like "the Pontiac Aztec of e-readers"). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says:
This isn't a device, it's a service.
That's CEO-speak for "yay, we can charge you for buying this gadget again and again". That emphasis makes it seem like the Kindle is less of a "read any text you want on the go" device and more of an interface for purchasing Amazon's e-books, e-magazines, and blogs (yes, they're charging for blogs somehow...). E-ink is a genuine innovation but until someone without some skin in the media game takes a good crack at it, e-book readers are destined to be buying machines and not reading machines.
Update: Here's a list of all the blogs that Amazon is selling for reading on the Kindle. Subscriptions are $0.99-$1.99. No kottke.org (thanks, Amazon!!). Are the bloggers getting their cut of the subscription fees? Can I put kottke.org on there for free...or at least at cost? I suspect bloggers are getting a cut, with the rest taken by Amazon for profit and the conversion of the blogs' text into whatever goofy format the Kindle uses. Would have been a lot cooler to put an RSS reader on there and just let people read whatever blogs they wanted.
Update: Joel Johnson has some more information about the Kindle after playing with one for a bit. The device service (sorry!) has an experimental web browser, on which you can browse whichever blogs and sites you wish (on Amazon's dime).
Update: Engadget says, among other things, that "blogs that are aggregated by the Kindle get a revenue share with Amazon, since it costs money to get those publications." (thx, daniel)
In the ongoing battle between the iTunes Music Store and Amazon's MP3 store, Amazon is giving a 20% referral fee to their associates for each song sold through the end of the year. Wow. That's $1.80 on a $8.99 album...I wonder if Amazon's selling these for below cost (like they did with Harry Potter.) (via nelson)
According to the person who filed a re-examination request, the US Patent Office has rejected a number of broad claims related to Amazon's one-click patent.
In its Office Action released 9 October 2007, the Patent Office found that the prior art I found and submitted completely anticipated the broadest claims of the patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411.
The patent is not off the books yet...Amazon has a chance to respond before that happens. People have been waiting for this for a long time. (via marginal revolution)
Amazon just sent me an email about my preorder of The Wire season 4 DVD. They say the shipping date has slipped a little, but the page still says it'll be out on Dec 4. Anyway, they made me verify the "change"; if I hadn't, they would have canceled the order, which seems a less-than-optimal solution to the problem. If you preordered, you might want to watch your inbox.
Amazon has launched their mp3 music store. Files are in mp3 format, no DRM, high bitrate (high quality), and songs are mostly 89-99 cents. A compelling alternative to Apple's iTMS.
An update regarding Harry Potter and the Phantom Delivery: Amazon issued me a refund for the book. I'm close to the end of the book...I hope it ends as well.
Harry Potter and the Phantom Delivery
Back in April, I pre-ordered Harry Potter 7 from Amazon. They guaranteed delivery on its release date, Saturday July 21 before 7pm or they would refund the cost of the book...the details of that offer are here. All day Saturday until shortly after 7pm, the UPS tracking information indicated that the package containing my copy of the book was "IN TRANSIT TO FINAL DESTINATION", which is UPS-speak for "the UPS guy/gal who will deliver your book does not yet have it in his/her possession"...the magic phrase for that action is "OUT FOR DELIVERY".
At some point after 7pm, the UPS status page updated to say that a notice was left at 3:36 pm, implying that a delivery attempt was made and no one was home to receive it. (Amazon's tracking page says that UPS told them "Delivery attempted - recipient not home".) No such notice was left. My door buzzer did not ring at 3:36 pm (I was home all day on Saturday) and the doorman of the building next door who takes the deliveries for our building when people aren't home reported no notice or delivery attempt. Here's the complete tracking info from UPS:
Location // Date // Local Time // Description
NEW YORK, NY, US // 07/21/2007 // 3:36 P.M. // NOTICE LEFT
NEW YORK, NY, US // 07/20/2007 // 12:00 P.M. // IN TRANSIT TO FINAL DESTINATION
NEW YORK, NY, US // 07/19/2007 // 4:51 P.M. // DESTINATION SCAN
NEW YORK, NY, US // 07/19/2007 // 4:50 P.M. // ORIGIN SCAN
US // 07/19/2007 // 1:34 P.M. // BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
Maybe I'm lying about being home or maybe the person trying to deliver the package made an honest mistake, but it's curious that a delivery attempt could have been made when the package was not even "OUT FOR DELIVERY". Here's what I think happened. I think UPS's network was overwhelmed by Amazon's Potter-volume in some parts of the country and they had no way to deliver all those packages. (The forums for the book at Amazon and Google Blog Search are full of similar complaints from others...warning, spoilers! UPS even offloaded some of the volume to the USPS for "last-mile" delivery.) So, UPS just marked all of those packages they had no intention of delivering as "oops, we missed you, you must have been out".
Let's go back to Amazon's guarantee, which states that the refund "does not apply if delivery is attempted, but no one is available to accept the package". Amazon would be pretty angry with UPS if they cost them a bunch of money due to refunds and, more importantly, the loss of a bunch of customer goodwill...maybe Amazon would switch a larger portion of their formidable package output to another carrier, for instance. So UPS intentionally misclassifying those deliveries covers their ass with Amazon and covers Amazon's ass with regard to the refund.
My copy of the book from Amazon will be here sometime today (UPS doesn't deliver on Sunday), by which time I'll already have mostly finished the copy I bought at Barnes & Noble about 7:30 pm Saturday evening. The extra $20 isn't a big deal to me and neither is having to wait all day to start in on the book. But this book was a *huge* deal for Amazon (2+ million pre-orders out of a first printing of 12 million) and for their customers who desired their instant Potter gratification. Amazon should be hopping mad at UPS over this; UPS shifted the blame from themselves to Amazon's customers...who are in turn going to blame Amazon, doubly so because Amazon probably won't might not issue refunds for those "missed" deliveries because they don't need to. A customer service-oriented company like Amazon shouldn't take this kind of crap from their shipping vendor...incidents like these will erode customer goodwill and eventually their customer base, the retention of which is one of Amazon's stated primary goals.
Update: I've asked Amazon for a refund and am waiting on their reply. From the emails I've gotten from readers so far, it sounds like Amazon is being liberal in the refund policy, as one would expect.
Update: No word from Amazon yet, but the USPS (not UPS) delivered my book Monday morning. It had a UPS sticker on it with instructions to the Post Office to deliver it to me. No update on the UPS tracking page that its been delivered. I'm tempted to leave it unopened in its custom Amazon box as a collector's item. Maybe I can get JK Rowling and Jeff Bezos to sign it.
Update: Amazon issued me a refund for the book.
Even though it's not out until October, you can pre-order the new version of OS X (10.5, aka Leopard) at Amazon right now.
A rerun, because it came up at dinner the other night: EPIC 2014, the recent history of technology and the media as told from the vantage point of 7 years in the future. "2008 sees the alliance that will challenge Microsoft's ambitions. Google and Amazon join forces to form Googlezon. Google supplies the Google Grid and unparalled search technology. Amazon supplies the social recommendation engine and its huge commercial infrastructure."
Amazon has the TiVo Series 3 DVR (that's the one with the 2 HD tuners) for only $400 after rebates. It was $800 when released back in late 2006. (via lance)
Amazon's running a contest to see which town in the US orders the most copies of the final book in the Harry Potter series. Towns in Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Georgia seem to dominate the rankings so far.
I'm not going to lie to you...I didn't read this whole thing, but I found the sprinkled-in UI redesigns of Amazon's book listings and other online retail interfaces interesting. (thx, drew)
The latest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is available for pre-order at Amazon and is currently the #1 seller in books.
The bestselling book at Amazon for 2006? Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer.
Update: Browse the top sellers by cover.
Amazon is selling web site thumbnails for $0.20 per 1000. That's cheap...and totally undercuts my planned thumbnail business. Instead, I'm switching gears and targetting the luxury thumbnail market; I'm thinking thumbnails printed on letterpress hand-delivered to your home/office. (via pb)
10,000 sheep drawn by workers hired through Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. Average wage for the artists? $0.69 per hour. (via waxy)
Amazon updates their online book reading interface...here's David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Matt has a screenshot and a bit about it. Coolest new feature: you can read some books online immediately after purchase (before the paper copy arrives) and use the reader interface to add notes and bookmarks to your online copy.
Local competition
Church of the Customer takes a look at how a Northern California restaurant called Cyrus competes with The French Laundry in attracting local customers, particularly those from wineries with big expense accounts for entertaining clients:
1. Match your competitor's exceptional quality.
The food at both restaurants was cooked perfectly and beautifully presented. Both delivered flawless service. By matching the quality of its better-known competitor, Cyrus removes the primary barriers of opposition.2. Allow your customers to customize.
The French Laundry offers three prix-fixe menus of nine courses each. Cyrus allows its customers to choose their number of courses and the dishes.
Local competition still matters. You usually think of restaurants like The French Laundry as competing on a national or international level. Over the years, Keller's flagship has made several short lists of the best restaurants in the world. But as this article demonstrates, having to compete for the same pool of local customers can drive competitors to achieve a high level of excellence, higher perhaps than they would have achieved without that competition, and that excellence could lead to wider recognition. Even companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Amazon who compete on a global level and don't interact with their customers face-to-face still have to vie with each other for local resources, particularly employees.
Blockbuster films are getting more expensive and accounting for less of Hollywood's box office take...is Hollywood's emphasis on big movies nearing its end? I've always thought it was dumb that the movie industry put so many of its eggs in so few baskets. (ps. Chris Anderson's Long Tail book is available for preorder on Amazon.)
Some of the worst selling DVDs on Amazon. Looks like the Hammy the Hamster DVD series isn't doing so well. See also books and music. (thx, josh)
Amazon/Alexa is opening up their index, letting people access the raw data, processing power, and even the crawlers. What a huge idea. (via bb)
Interview with Jeff Bezos on Amazon's current activities. "We have always tried to be very clear with people that we are an appropriate company only for long-term-oriented investors."
Merlin is collecting funny eBay ads from Google. "Looking for Handjob? Find exactly what you want today. www.eBay.com". Dictionary.com used to have Amazon ads tied to search terms that would say things like "Buy crack cocaine at Amazon" or "Buy hookers at Amazon". I for one welcome our new robot marketing overlords.
Select one-star reviews from Amazon of books on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English language novels since 1923 (discussion).
Book author to her publishing company: your lawsuit is not helping me or my book
I got an email this morning from a kottke.org reader, Meghann Marco. She's an author and struggling to get her book out into the hands of people who might be interested in reading it. To that end, she asked her publisher, Simon & Schuster, to put her book up on Google Print so it could be found, and they refused. Now they're suing Google over Google Print, claiming copyright infringement. Meghann is not too happy with this development:
Kinda sucks for me, because not that many people know about my book and this might help them find out about it. I fail to see what the harm is in Google indexing a book and helping people find it. Anyone can read my book for free by going to the library anyway.
In case you guys haven't noticed, books don't have marketing like TV and Movies do. There are no commercials for books, this website isn't produced by my publisher. Books are driven by word of mouth. A book that doesn't get good word of mouth will fail and go out of print.
Personally, I hope that won't happen to my book, but there is a chance that it will. I think the majority of authors would benefit from something like Google Print.
She has also sent a letter of support to Google which includes this great anecdote:
Someone asked me recently, "Meghann, how can you say you don't mind people reading parts of your book for free? What if someone xeroxed your book and was handing it out for free on street corners?"
I replied, "Well, it seems to be working for Jesus."
And here's an excerpt of the email that Meghann sent me (edited very slightly):
I'm a book author. My publisher is suing Google Print and that bothers me. I'd asked for my book to be included, because gosh it's so hard to get people to read a book.
Getting people to read a book is like putting a cat in a box. Especially for someone like me, who was an intern when she got her book deal. It's not like I have money for groceries, let alone a publicist.
I feel like I'm yelling and no one is listening. Being an author can really suck sometimes. For all I know speaking up is going to get me blacklisted and no one will ever want to publish another one of my books again. I hope not though.
[My book is] called 'Field Guide to the Apocalypse' It's very funny and doesn't suck. I worked really hard on it. It would be nice if people read it before it went out of print.
As Tim O'Reilly, Eric Schmidt, and Google have argued, I think these lawsuits against Google are a stupid (and legally untenable) move on the part of the publishing industry. I know a fair number of kottke.org readers have published books...what's your take on the situation? Does Google Print (as well as Amazon "Search Inside the Book" feature) hurt or help you as an author? Do you want your publishing company suing Google on your behalf?
The Army's Be All You Can Be ads don't really work all that well, despite being the 25th largest advertiser in the US. Recruiting is actually correlated more closely with the economy...the economy goes bad and the number of recruits goes up. Here's a better way to spend that ad money: give it to incoming recruits as bonuses...the same strategy Amazon uses in offering free shipping to customers rather than spending that money on TV ads. (thx garrick)
Praise be, someone's picked up the development of the MTAmazon plug-in for Movable Type. (thx jason)
Katrina assistance
A reader inquires:
When the tsunami struck Asia last year, Amazon.com was quick to post a donation link on its front page. Don't you think they should do the same for the victims of Katrina? How about using that platform of yours to apply some leverage to Jeff and the crew to get a link up there?
Amazon's lack of a donation link was noted in our household this morning as well. How about it, Amazon? (thx scott)
In the meantime, you can donate directly to the Red Cross (the site seems a little slow right now, so be patient).
Update: Please stop emailing me about the tsunami/Katrina comparison thing. I don't wish to debate the relative scale of natural disasters or who deserves more attention and aid when bad stuff happens. Individuals and corporations alike need to determine who they wish to aid on their own terms. In the past, Amazon has been a place to go to give aid...it's the first place I thought of going when I heard of the escalating problems in the Gulf states (and I don't think I'm alone here) because if they had a donation mechanism, it would be a fast link and easy for people to donate. That Amazon has chosen to not to set up a donation mechanism in this case is their choice and I certainly don't fault them for it.
Update #2: InternetWeek is reporting that Amazon has decided not to add a donation mechanism to their site. (thx, julio)
Update #3: Amazon now has a donation link on the front page which goes to this donation page. (thx to several who wrote in, including those at Amazon.)
Amazon has very quietly added sex supplies (lubricants, vibrators, condoms, etc.) to their massive inventory.
Paul tries to figure out why people review products at Amazon that have already been reviewed by several people. "What motivates someone to submit the 1,282nd review of The Poisonwood Bible to Amazon.com?"
Tips on how small bookstores can compete with larger booksellers like Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Amazon Associates $10 cap removed
Sometime in the last 6-9 months (it's been that long since I last looked at my account), Amazon changed their policy on placing an upper limit on the amount an associate can earn on big ticket items:
Only personal computers (both desktops and laptops) have referral fees capped at $25. No other product lines have their referral fees capped.
Previously, the most you could earn if a referral was $10, even if the item cost $3000 and the referral rate was 5%. Sometime in the last month and a half, someone used my associates code to purchase a printer for close to $600 and gave me $28 for "selling" that printer for them. I don't link to Amazon as much as I used to (my referrals and revenue have been flat several quarters despite increasing site traffic), but the associates must be pretty happy with this change, particularly those that can move big ticket items on a regular basis. For the right blog or site, the revenue generated by putting up Amazon ads featuring more expensive items might compare favorably to using AdSense or the like.
So, if you've been waiting to buy that Segway, a book on Bhutan, a 65" plasma TV, or a 5-carat diamond, you know what to do. *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*
Long Tail poster boy Amazon's tail isn't as long as first reported. Oops. (But a good oops...Chris is after the truth here, not just a good story.)
The difficulty of pre-ordering the new Harry Potter book online. If the book is ordered online, how much after the midnight release will the book be delivered? Next day or wait until after the weekend?
The Economist on the Long Tail, the current buzzphrase du jour. It'll be interesting to see if the Long Tail idea will be "over" by the time the book comes out or if it's got legs. Either way, it's still an interesting way to think about your business.
