Much as I like Amazon, that’s not where I go to decide what to buy: but could Amazon or something like it channel prospective buyers in such vast numbers successfully? Tags: conferences Amazon China CIC Dell Facebook Inc qq Sam Flemming social media social network I was at a talk on how internet word of mouth (iWOM) works in China a couple of weeks ago. There were a few noteworthy things that Sam Flemming , CEO and Co-Founder of CIC , said:

Amazon API Amazon and eBay dominate shopping widgets – Amazon lets you embed book widgets on your blog, and you get between 4-10% affiliate revenue. But clicking through to Amazon site is not ideal – so much nicer if you can complete the sale on site. Amazon’s AWS offers merchants an “in the cloud” service including a fulfillment API. Episode 3 focusses on monetizing APIs and looking at revenue streams from widgets. Companies that open their business databases and stream that data out, can have an army of hundreds of thousands

Bruce Sterling reminds us to be wary of proprietary devices: “Kindle users have been grumbling lately about Amazon locking them out of their accounts, reportedly due to an overly high volume of returns on their Kindle books. ChannelWeb draws attention to the plight of one user who admitted to three “high-priced returns,” though he denied abusing Amazon’s return policy. Despite this, Amazon banned him from making more purchases from the online store, which also locked him out of accessing his already-purchased Kindle items. This particular user

As a long time Amazon fan (I remember when the site was a solid tan background and only sold books), I’ve been so very impressed with the way their site and their community efforts have developed over the years. Amazon’s Community team is looking for a seasoned Community Moderation Manager to help shape our vibrant online community of reviews and discussions. Sometimes a job description comes across the Community Guy Jobs Board that I simply can’t help but share it’s so cool. It’s disappointing that they don’t get more credit for the sheer

This week, I am blogging on one of the Amazon blogs -- Omnivoracious . Each of us has a different approach for how to mine Amazon data for interesting insights. Multiple people are posting about various approaches on how book purchases relate to the upcoming 2008 US presidential election. I am grateful to be included with such experts as John Zogby, Bill Bishop, and Andrew Gelman.

Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities , Amy Jo Kim ( Amazon ) – a great text explaining the how to grow online communities, and explaining through examples why they grow like this. Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards , Patrick O’Keefe ( Amazon ) – another great textbook of how to set-up and manage online forums and discussion boards. Image by austinevan via Flickr A

I'm surprised it took Amazon this long to exploit their own political book buying data. The Amazon maps go to where the power is -- state by state -- the Electoral College. The Amazon maps indicate whether each state's residents purchased a larger number of red or blue books. are Amazon book buyers representative of the political book buying population? Amazon clusters the political book sales data into 60 day slices. Comparing my recent book network maps to the above pictured book volume map, seems to show that while the Left read a larger variety of books, in most states the Right buys greater quantities of a smaller set of books. Some interesting questions remain... are book buyers influential with voters in their social network?

Amazon arrived on the scene in the mid-1990s. The innovation that allowed Amazon to dominate the online book market was economic distribution of individual books within parameters that consumers found appealing. Amazon was able to offer lower prices by making volume purchases. Prior to the Kindle, Amazon’s You might think that, at $359, the Kindle is a high end product, and it is. It’s really still for early adopters at this stage.

Furthermore, at the time I wrote this, 167,113 of Amazon�s book reviews were contributed by just a few "top-100" reviewers ; the most prolific reviewer had written 12,423 reviews. For example, Amazons "people who bought this book, bought these other books" recommendations are a side effect of people buying books. use it.com Alertbox Oct. 2006 Participation Inequality in Social Design Jakob Nielsen sAlertbox, October 9, 2006: Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute Summary: In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never

The book is available to buy on all the major Amazon sites: Canada France Germany Japan United States United Kingdom Even if you don’t buy it, I would be hugely grateful that if you like it, please go and review it on Amazon. This is one I’m buying off Amazon Canada just for you dude. Rev. Home About The Book About The Author About The Editors Spread Buy / Get Reviews Grab the RSS feed Art Of Community Online Posted on September 18th, 2009 Written by Jono Bacon