Amazon

Amazon Bloopers : The end of printed media

Disclaimer: before you read any further, I want to you know that’s it nothing more than an obvious bug in a very large and complex system called Amazon. A friend just pointed it out to me while it was happening. And not just somewhere, but in my own Amazon Wishlist!

Amazon is one of the largest online shops, if not the largest. And while they do sell a large variety of products, they started as and they will always be a book shop. Back when they started, digital books, even though existed, were more of a distant future dream. These days they are a reality. But given that printed and digital books co-exist in the same world, how do they affect each other? One way to look at that would be to compare prices for the same books in printed versus digital formats. Here is an example: A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web | Five Simple Steps.

You can buy this book in several digital formats for as low as 12 British Pounds (GBP). How much money would you have to part with if you insisted on the version with nostalgic smell of printed pages and no search functionality? According to the Amazon itself, you’d have to pay up 815.74 GBP!

With prices like that, I think we can safely assume that the era of printed media is over. All hail digital!

Amazon charges WiFi Kindle users for 3G roaming via books

As per this post over at Download Squad, it seems that Amazon is charging all international Kindle users, including WiFi-only Kindle owners for 3G roaming, using their book prices.

I decided to start with the classics – for example, Moby Dick. Yes, I know it’s available for free online, but this edition is typeset for the Kindle so I figured it must be worth the modest sum Amazon asks for it ($2.95, as you see in the screenshot above).

When I sent the link to my friend, who has an Amazon account with a Canadian billing address, we were amazed to discover that Amazon list the same exact item at $0.95 when she’s looking at it.

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The rep said, “yes, I understand it is WiFi only, but there are roaming charges because AT&T is the service provider”. Upon which I proceeded to explain yet again that I do not have a 3G chip in my device, physically. This intelligent exchange went on for a few minutes, until I finally asked to speak to her manager.

Upon getting the team leader, he basically told me the same thing. I would be required to pay for a roaming charge, even though Amazon advertises its 3G as free and that my device is WiFi only.

I then emailed them to kindle-feedback@amazon.com, and got the same exact reply.

Now that’s pretty silly on the Amazon part. But being the smart guys as they are, I’m sure they will notice and fix the issue soon. Let me know if you hear of any developments in this area. (Yes, I am planning to get myself the Amazon Kindle)

How cheap e-readers can go?

The Wall Street Journal asks the question – “How low will e-readers prices go?”

The $99 e-reader announcement comes after Amazon’s announcement of a $139 Kindle, and after Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Sony all lowered prices on their gadgets in the wake of Apple’s iPad release. As Amazon prepares to release a $139 Kindle e-reader next month, could even cheaper e-readers be close behind?

I think they are. They should eventually get much cheaper. One thing that makes e-readers different from the rest of the computer technology is that they are often produced and sold not by hardware companies, but by book selling companies. While it’s nice to get some extra cash from the hardware, the main goal of the book selling business is to sell books. The more books they sell, the better they are. E-reader is the device that helps them sell more books. So if that is going to drive their business up, book selling companies can cover the big chunk of e-reader costs by extra profits.

Also, unlike the rest of the computing world, I think e-readers will remain rather simplistic. They are domain-specific devices, with very specific needs – readable display, long lasting battery and simplicity. The more bells and whistles you put in, the complicated it becomes and the more battery it drains. Plus, I think by now everyone already has either a laptop or a mobile device that has all the bells and whistles. E-reader is good for disconnecting, even if shortly, from the rest of the world.

Looking back, we’ve seen a number of simple domain-specific electronics. Such as calculators and electronic translators. While they are mostly replaced by modern mobile phones, you can still buy them. And the prices are very low, not anywhere near to how they used to be. Electronic translators come as cheap as $16 and calculators are from $4, via a quick Google search. I’m sure if you look deeper, you’ll find them cheaper.

If e-readers will get any more complicated or expensive, one of the things that might happen with them is subscription business. Similar to how it is now with mobile phones and telecom companies. You pay subscription fees or membership or something, and you get a device with your contract. And then you pay for some books (new editions or bestsellers) like for international calls and you get some free (public domain works, blogs, news via RSS, etc).

That’s all, of course, assuming reading books won’t just die over. Like so many other beautiful things.

Kudos to Amazon

I’ve been ordering stuff from Amazon.co.uk rather frequently. I never had any problems with any of the products or deliveries. Until my last order. For some reason it just didn’t come. And because it was a DataPost delivery, it couldn’t have been tracked either.

So, when all the dates for estimated delivery passed, I emailed back to Amazon asking them if they have any information about that order. They told me that they haven’t, but if the order won’t arrive in the next few days (they gave me a specific date), then I should just let them know and they would resend it free of charge.

The date they mentioned came and went but the order still wasn’t here. So I waited for another couple of days and asked Amazon again. They emailed me back and said that they will place a replacement order within the same day. A few minutes later they confirmed that the replacement order has been placed, and just wanted to know if I still want all of the items, since one of the DVDs that I had on the list changed status from “In Stock” to “Usually ships within the next 4-6 business days”. I said that I don’t mind about more delay and would rather just get all of the things that I ordered.

And that was it. Two weeks later the re-placement order came in. And now let me state the obvious: I am a really satisfied happy customer. My respects and thanks go to Amazon for handling the situation the best way they could.

P.S.: A few days after the replacement order arrived, the original order came too. Very much delayed, but it came through as well. Because I am a greedy bastard, and because those DVDs are just so good, and because Christmas is almost upon us, I won’t be sending one of this orders back. I’ll keep both of them. But I will for sure order more, a lot more from Amazon. Thank you, and an early Merry Chrismas.

Zoomii.com – The “Real” Online Bookstore

Via this CyberNet News post I got to Zoomii.com. There is a saying about all new being well forgotten old. And that’s exactly what Zoomii.com is about.

There is something magical about walking through a bookshop – touching books, flipping pages. Especially, when you don’t know exactly what are you looking for. Amazon has sort of taken it away. You get in, get your stuff, maybe grab something that is recommended nearby, and leave. Zoomii.com combines the best of both worlds. You can still get stuff from Amazon shop at Amazon prices, but instead of visiting a rather cumbersome interface of their site, you can browse through a familiar bookshelf area.

The combination of a good design with intuitive interface makes it almost a “Wow!” site fo me. It took me exactly three seconds to figure out how to use it. And even if I wasn’t tech savvy, there is a little friendly popup that appears when entering the site, which tells briefly how to navigate around. The control panel on the left is small, and has only the things that I care about – navigation, category selector, and information about my cart. Brilliant.

The only thing that I wish Zoomii.com had that it doesn’t have (or at least I couldn’t find) is the option of choosing which Amazon shop to buy from. If I could buy directly from Amazon.co.uk, it would be a 10 of 10 web site. Hope, they will add this option later.

Sites like this should be taught to web designers and developers. This is how the web should be – clean, simple, efficient, and intuitive.