Google entering e-Book Market

Google recently announced that they plans to start selling e-books through its Google Editions store. The new Google e-books store is supposed to launch in mid-June or July.

Google is attempting to go after Amazon and Apple to capture a share of the e-book market. In the Google Editions store, Google will let users buy e-books they find through searches. Similar to Amazon and others, Google will set up revenue-sharing systems with publishers.

If the affiliate revenue sharing program commissions are competitive or higher than Apple or Amazon, Google may do very well. Only time will tell. The e-book and e-reader market have really started to take off with the kindle and apple ipad gaining in popularity every day.

According to Credit Suisse the e-book market is still embryonic, estimating it at just 1% of book sales. They have projected it to grow to 3% by the end of 2010.

I'm sure there is more to unfold on this story, so stay tuned!!!

Amazon Launches Denim Shop - Top Denim Brands

Amazon just launched a new Denim Shop with free shipping and free returns on jeans.
At the Amazon Denim Shop you can find an impressive lineup of premium denim brands such as 7 for All Mankind, Lucky Brand, Joe's Jeans, plus all-American classics such as Levi's.



The launch of the Amazon Denim Shop is pretty timely, with the prime Shopping season getting ready to start.

Amazon.com Unveils Holiday Toy List - Top Toys

Amazon.com released it's Holiday Toy List. The list features roughly 300 top toys across a variety of categories, including: video games, sporting goods, electronics and DVDs.


Here's a handful of the top toys on their list.

-- Bakugan Battle Arena (B0014SRP0A, $23.99)

-- Animal Crossing: City Folk for Nintendo Wii (B001CM0PR8, $49.99)

-- Children's Ultimate Ears Loud Enough (B001AAK50E, $34.99)

-- Disney Hannah Montana Acoustic Guitar (B000XTJJF0, $79.99)

-- Evenflo ExerSaucer 3-in-1 Pond (B000KZE3CG, $91.00)

-- Fisher-Price Elmo Live (B0015KOFZK, $64.87)

-- Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo (B000I2UJ0Q, $64.97)

-- Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder (B000V1MLCI, $116.10)

-- Kettler Go-Green Trike (B001A5LIGO, $49.99)

-- Kung Fu Panda Widescreen Edition (B001ECQ75A, $16.99)
-- LeapFrog Tag Reading System (B00134O7QU, $49.99)

-- LittleBigPlanet for PlayStation 3 (B001IVXI7C, $59.99)

-- Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube (B00004TFLB, $19.96)

-- Rand Batman Dark Knight 16-Inch Kids' Bike (B001D8RDDK, $64.94)
-- Raving Rabbids TV Party for Nintendo Wii (B001FEO74U, $49.99)

-- Spalding Rookie Gear (B001CI5EW8, $19.99)

-- Wall-E Three-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy (B001EOQWEO, $22.99)

Here is the full Amazon Press Release. We've also compiled our own list of holiday Top Toys List for the Holiday Shopping Season.




Happy Shopping.

Amazon battles 'Wrap Rage' with New Frustration Free Packaging

Amazon has launched a new frustration-free packaging solution to help customers avoid "wrap rage" this holiday season.

Here's the letter shown to users on Amazon's home page that outlines Amazon's Program.

Dear Customers,

Wrap rage describes the frustration we humans feel when trying to free a product from a nearly impenetrable package.

Some products are hermetically sealed inside plastic clamshell cases, while others
(especially toys) use plastic-coated steel-wire ties. Without the right tools,
wire ties can be painful and time-consuming to untwist.

Today, we're excited to announce the beginning of a multi-year initiative designed to
alleviate wrap rage Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging.

Amazon is working with leading manufacturers to deliver products inside smaller, easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard boxes with less packaging material (and no frustrating plastic clamshells or wire ties).

One of the first products to launch with Frustration-Free Packaging is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship, which is now delivered in an easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard box.

The new packaging eliminates: 36 inches of plastic-coated steel-wire
ties 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts 36.1 square
inches of folding carton materials 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters 3.5
square inches of ABS molded styrene Two molded plastic fasteners.

We've launched Frustration-Free Packaging with 19 best-selling items from
Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft, and electronics manufacturer Transcend. It will
take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in
Frustration-Free Packaging.

We offer our sincere thanks to these companies for working with us in this effort we truly appreciate it. In addition to making packages easier to open, a major goal of the Frustration-Free Packaging initiative is to be more environmentally friendly by using less packaging material. We've also launched a number of projects across the company to reduce waste and save energy. We've pulled together a video and a few
pictures that demonstrate how frustrating packaging can be feel free to
send us your pictures and videos by visiting www.amazon.com/upload.

Many thanks for being a customer!

Sincerely,
Jeff Bezos Founder and CEO
Amazon.com

This is a great move by Amazon, which will probably be followed by many more retailers to come.

Amazon Kindle - Oprah's Kindle Rescue and Kindle $50 Coupon

The Kindle - Amazon's Wireless Reading Device has been rescued by Oprah Winfrey.
Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos and his company's revolutionary Kindle e-book reader were the stars of Fridays Oprah Winfrey Show.

Oprah said that the Amason Kindle was her new favorite thing in the world. She went on to say that it would pay for itself and good for the environment (saves paper) among other things.

Shopper's who enter coupon code: OPRAHWINFREY will get the Amazon Kindle for only $309 (a $50 Discount) . I'm sure this will help to give the struggling Kindle a boost.

See Full Article

Amazon.com - Down Again???

Amazon.com website went down last Friday during the day for 2 hours, then it went down again on Monday. Some Amazon.com visitors made it in (roughly 30%).

Why is this such a big deal?

Well, Amazon is considered the best of the best when it comes to site up time. Going down during peak hours once was a big deal. Twice is even bigger. I haven't seen details released about the outage. I'm sure this was not the timeliest of outages with Father's Day approaching.

Amazon Invests in The Talk Market - Shopping Channel

Amazon announced today that they were investing in "The Talk Market". I hadn't heard of it before, but after checking it out, it seems pretty cool. It's like an online version of QVC, where businesses can upload product presentations/videos. It's obviously not as high quality as a QVC production, but from the videos I watched, they still seem pretty professional. Talk Market also has some video intros that you can download that will help your videos have a more professional appeal.

Users can go to the site and search/browse for products. This seems to be one of those sites to go to if you are looking for a gift for someone and you just can't figure out what to get. Browsing and watching videos could give you some help. Sample of the Electronics Listings. After doing a few searches, it doesn't look like they have much of a selection. With the help from Amazon, I am sure their catalog will grow.

More Information

5,000 More Titles available on Amazon Kindle

Amazon.com and Simon & Schuster announced today (5/30/2008) that they will make 5,000 additional titles available for the Amazon Kindle over the course of 2008. Kindle books overall are starting to grow as a percentage of Amazon's overall sales (Currently 6%).

In case you were wondering, the Kindle is a portable reader that can downloads books, blogs, magazines, newspapers and more wirelessly. The Kindle reader itself will run you about $359.00.


Additional News on Amazon Kindle