amazon

Jeff Bezos speech when Amazon was 3 years old

Jeff Bezos made this speech back in 1998. Amazon first opened its doors in 1995, so this was still very early in its life. Still, enough time had passed that a lot of lessons were learned, business strategies evolved.

Often, publishers are surprised to find out that we allow negative reviews to appear on our website. You should read the reviews for the book Tenth Justice, which is a new beach book. Our customers have just destroyed that poor book. If you were thinking of buying it and you came to our website, you’d think, “Well, maybe I’ll look for something else.” On the other hand, there’s a book called Endurance; it’s a book about a guy named Shackleton, whose boat, while on an Arctic expedition, got crushed in an ice flow. He had to spend six months with his men, 28 men, hiking out of Antarctica, and they made it. Not a single man was lost.

It’s one of the greatest stories of all time of endurance and human spirit. There are dozens and dozens of customer reviews about it; this is an old book, originally published in 1956. For months, this book has been on the top 100 best-selling books on Amazon.com, strictly fed by these customer reviews. I challenge you to read the customer reviews on that book and see if you can resist buying it.

Terrific read.

Amazon sweatshop

It appears that Amazon’s warehouses are the global book distribution chain’s equivalent of modern day sweatshops. Earlier this week Amazon fired its German security firm after a documentary film crew from ARD tied it to a far right wing group. The film crew revealed that seasonal workers hired by an Amazon subcontractor in Germany, many of whom were previously unemployed, were driven around Germany in buses, housed in poor conditions and kept under constant surveillance by the aforementioned security guards.

I’m guessing the mainstream media won’t see fit to make a big deal out of this like they did with Apple and Foxconn.

[Via Harry Marks]

Amazon sells 34 apps from its Appstore in the last year

App downloads in the Appstore have grown more than 500 percent over the previous year.

All Amazon says in its press release is that they have grown 500 percent. Typical of the way they do business, they refuse to release actual numbers.

So, I’m guessing it’s 34 apps. Amazon hasn’t said anything to prove me wrong, so that’s what I’m going with. It’s a lot of fun to play loosey goosey with numbers isn’t it Amazon?

More Amazon bullshit

Amazon today announced that this Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the best ever for the Kindle family, and the popular new Kindle e-readers and tablets remain at the top of Amazon’s best sellers list worldwide.

How many exactly did they sell? Amazon won’t say. Could be they sold 10 Kindles between the two days, nobody knows for sure. Just more bullshit from Amazon.

Jeff Bezos as Steve Jobs

Om Malik:

Jeff Bezos announced a whole slew of Kindle devices and launched the new Kindle Fire tablets. And if you believe all the Twitter chatter, then he did it in a Steve Jobs style presentation.

I agree with Om that Jeff Bezos has done a great job — except at making profits — and from all I’ve heard, his presentation today was great. Having said that, he’s no Steve Jobs, as much as he may want to be.

One announcement away from destroying the Nexus

Abdel Ibrahim:

But unfortunately for Amazon and Google, as good as their impending tablets are shaping up to be, Apple’s got something up its sleeve, too.

I agree with Abdel on Google, but not as much with Amazon. When Apple releases its smaller iPad, all tablet manufacturers are going to feel the heat — there is no doubt in my mind about that. However, I believe people purchase the Amazon products for a different reason. They buy into the Kindle brand as opposed to just purchasing a tablet. While some people may choose to buy the smaller iPad, many will continue to buy the Kindle because it does the one thing they really want from it — read books.

Consumers and DRM in eBooks

Amit Runchal:

The difference between DRM in eBooks and DRM in music is now DRM’s main purpose isn’t to combat piracy but to ensure competitive lock-in.

Some interesting thoughts.

∞ Amazon Fire does email, already beats RIM

Stay in touch using our built-in email app that gets your webmail (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc.) into a single inbox. Import your messages and contact lists from other email accounts. Additional email apps are available in our Amazon Appstore … Continued

∞ Amazon Kindle Fire; 7-inch tablet for $199

Bloomberg: The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said. The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software, … Continued

∞ Amazon press event

Reuters: Amazon.com Inc, which revolutionized reading with its Kindle e-reader, is expected to unveil a tablet computer next week that analysts say will seriously challenge Apple’s market dominating iPad. Okay, they are having a press event, but I doubt it … Continued

∞ The Amazon tablet

MG Siegler has the scoop: Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, I believe the reports that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like … Continued

∞ Game developers association warns against Amazon Appstore

The International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA’s) Board of Directors have issued a strong warning to its members about putting software up for sale on Amazon’s new Android-based Appstore. The organization says that Amazon’s terms may ultimately have a “negative impact…on the game development community.”

Amazon’s Appstore has appeared recently as an alternative to the Android Market. It provides users of Android-based smartphones and tablets a way to purchase and download software for their devices, using their existing Amazon.com account information.

Read the rest of this story on The Loop

∞ Amazon launches "Cloud Drive" music service

Amazon.com on Tuesday unveiled “Cloud Drive,” a new service that enables users to keep music available online. The service works in conjunction with a “Cloud Player” app that runs on Android devices; an app build using Adobe AIR is also … Continued