Inside Amazon-dot-com

Last week, Amazon unveiled the much-anticipated or at least   much-hyped 3D smart phone,  following up with an email to all its customers introducing the phone with the slogan "The First Smartphone Designed by Amazon". That slogan sounds a bit strange since the Amazon brand is not associated with product design excellence so "the first blah designed by Amazon" does not really carry much weight with us - Amazon did pioneer the eBook reader business with Kindle and dominates it, but that's not because of its elegant design, more because of ready availability of the content at bargain prices, which in turn is based on  Amazon’s willingness to sell both the device and eBooks at a loss to gain market share.  Brilliant business strategy, perhaps, but IMHO, that does not set Amazon as a product design excellence star. All that slogan does is tell us that Amazon is not too proud to be (just) a company that efficiently operates warehouses and packs & deliv...

At some point while we were all sleeping, Amazon launched Prime Music, through which users can stream unlimited tracks from Amazon’s music catalog. This all, no doubt, in preparation for their upcoming smart phone release. Don’t get too excited—Amazon’s music catalog can boast around 1 million songs—and that’s about it. Music streaming competitors’ numbers are more in the 20-30 million range for, well, not an increased price to match that ratio.  Music industry critic Bob Lefsetz warns that the move is a step even further backwards from current music-streaming models via Apple and Spotify that take large percentages of profits from rights holders and musicians. The payment model is unclear, selection limited, and could turn out to be, as Lefsetz is quick to call it, “a disaster.”  He suggests that Competitors will only see an increase in users. The imperfect attempt at a music streaming service has larger repercussions. If Amazon hopes to have a successful smart pho...

Interesting infographic by  Institute for Local Self-Reliance  presents the darker side of Amazon.com. 

The tiff between Amazon and book publisher Hachette continues to make waves, and everyone associated is getting vocal. Here’s a quick look at the situation: it all began when negations between internet biggie Amazon and Hatchette—owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world—went awry due to Amazon’s demand for price concessions from the publishing house. The subsequent controversy had grabbed a whole lotta eyeballs. The authors involved seem to have taken clear sides; they are either staunchly on the side of Amazon or in full support of Hachette—what’s more interesting is how either powerhoouse is retaliating. Once Hatchette refused price concessions, Amazon made its move. Hatchette’s publications saw their pre-order option saw removal, and certain authors have found themselves unlisted.  And there’s more! Forget Amazon’s usual discounts and be ready for lengthy delivery times. All of ...

In an open letter to Amazon customers on its website (partial image shown on the right), Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos announced launch of Prime Music, referring toit as the "the newest benefit of Prime membership".  The Prime Music allows Prime members to not only "listen ad-free to over a million songs", it allows them  to download those songs to their smartphones and Kindle devices to listen to them offline as well. It's different from other internet radio providers such as Pandora.  The message from Jeff Bezos also emphasized, several times, how Prime Music comes with Prime Playlist removing " one more barrier — deciding what to listen to." Amazon recognizes the issue of over-choice, how selecting what songs to listen to from a million songs could be daunting, so it has arranged them into hundreds of Prime Playlists which are (supposedly) created by music experts have created for you.    The message goes on to mention the list of popular sin...