Over this past weekend, Amazon.com removed the sales rankings for gay and lesbian books. Bloggers and Twitter users were furious so they coined a term, “AmazonFail.” Mark R. Probst first blogged about the incident after he received a message from an Amazon representative when he noticed that his rankings had disappeared from “Transgressions” and “False Colors” which are two new gay romance novels.

In the message from Amazon, they said that they exclude adult material from searches and best selling lists. However the “adult” classification was not being applied to an edition of “Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds” according to Probst.

This past Sunday, about 20 Amazon employees were told that several novels were being improperly flagged as adult. AmazonFail was being more used than the words “Easter” and “Jesus” on Twitter.

“People got pulled away from their Easter thing when this whole thing broke,” stated an Amazon employee. “It was just a screwup.”

[via WSJ and SeattlePI]

Amazon.com launched a store for Xbox LIVE. Through the Xbox LIVE store on Amazon.com, consumers will be able to buy Xbox LIVE Arcade games, subscription cards, and Microsoft points directly from the website. Whoever buys the goods from Amazon.com will receive a key code that can be redeemed by the console owner. Giving Xbox LIVE Arcade games as gifts to others was not previously available before Amazon.com opened this storefront. The Xbox LIVE Store on Amazon.com will also have customer reviews and a recommendation system built-in.

To check out the store, visit http://www.amazon.com/xboxlive.

[via BGR]

Amazon.com is shutting down three distribution centers (DCs) soon.  This is the first time Amazon.com has closed a DC since 2006.  The closures will take place in Munster, Indiana, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Red Rock, Nevada.

The 215 workers at the Amazon.com DCs will receive pay up until May 25 and receive benefits up until May 31.  The employees will receive 3 weeks of severance pay and will get a chance to transfer to other distribution centers based in the U.S.

Amazon.com reportedly has dozens of fulfillment centers around the country, but their website claims that they have 12 fulfillment centers in 12 U.S. states and 8 other countries.

In order to get some experience in the field, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos worked at the fulfillment center in Lexington, Kentucky for one week.  The Munster, Indiana facility is shutting down after only being open for 18 months.

[via TechFlash]

The last time I wrote about Discovery Communications was in October 2007 when they announced that they were acquiring HowStuffWorks.com for $250 million.  A couple months before that, Discovery also bought out TreeHugger.com for about $10-$15 million.  It looks like Discovery wants to collect some money for themselves now because they have filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com over the Amazon.com Kindle.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware.  The lawsuit is in regards to a patent for an encyption system used for e-books.  Discovery is seeking triple damages and “continuing royalty” for the device.

Amazon.com’s Kindle has become very popular with the recent release of the second version with a text-to-speech feature.

“The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems,” stated Joseph A. LaSala Jr., general counsel of Discovery. “We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation.”

Discovery filed for a patent in 1999 that was titled “electronic book security and copyright protection system.”  They were awarded the patent in 2007.

[via WSJ]

You know that feeling Pac-Man must get when he eats that magic pill that gives him the ability to swallow ghosts and reguritate out their eyeballs.  The makers of Pac-Man Energy Drink probably want you to have that same feeling when you chug cans of their concoction.  It comes in a cherry flavor and is loaded with sugar and caffeine.  The 8.4 oz cans are available at Amazon.com for about $2.99 each.

[via Technabob]

Good stuff!  Anyone that wants a T-Mobile G1, powered by Google’s Android can now buy it for a low price through Amazon.com.  It is available for $97 with a two-year contract.  Amazon.com is currently only offering the phone in black.

[via Mobility Site]

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has launched a videogame trade-in service today.  This allows users to send in used games and receive credit in return.  They can use this credit to buy items from Amazon.com.  “Amazon Video Games Trade-In is a new service that enables you to trade in your games for an Amazon.com Gift Card,” stated the company in their blog.

Customers can use a prepaid shipping label to send videogames to Amazon and then they will receive the credit.  This offering is a direct blow to video game store company GameStop.  GameStop has 6,100 stores in the U.S. and 17 other countries.

[via AFP]

Its been about one week since the Amazon.com Kindle 2 has been available for purchase.  But Amazon.com doesn’t want to leave Apple in the dark in terms of providing books on handheld devices.  Amazon is going to unveil a free application later today that will allow electronic books to be read on the iPhone and iPod Touch.  It will be available on the Apple App Store.

The application will have access to the same e-books, mags, and newspapers that are supported by the Kindle.  The application has a Whisper Sync feature that allows users to pick up where they left off when reading books.

The Amazon.com Kindle 2 currently retails for $359 and has a Text-to-Speech feature.  This feature was criticized by the Authors Guild.  As a settlement, Amazon.com made this feature optional for publishers.

[via CNET]

Earlier this week, the Amazon.com Kindle 2 started shipping.  The Kindle 2 has more space to hold more books than the original and even contains a feature called text-to-speech.   A robotic computer voice even reads the book for you if you like.

The Authors Guild, a group that represents 9,000 book authors apparently criticized Amazon for having this feature.  Amazon wrote a press release saying that the feature is legal, but decided to give the copyright owners the option to choose whether to allow the ebook to have Text-to-speech built-in.  Amazon pretty much did this as a concession, but they didn’t have to do it.

Below is the full press release:
(more…)

This interview made me want to buy the Kindle 2 even more. Especially the part where Bezos said that with the Kindle 2, you can read with only one hand.

[Read more at Gadgets 'N Gear]

Details about the new Kindle on Gadgets N’ Gear

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) started a massive project to scan books from university libraries all over the world.  The project has been successful for the most part with the exception of facing litigation from a few publishers.   The main point of the project was to make books more accessible to people in order to level the playing field for the spread of knowledge.

Viresh Ratnakar, Guillaume Poncin, Brandon Badger, and Frances Haugen wrote on the Google Blog that one of the greatest things about iPhones and the Android is that we are able to play games and watch videos while waiting in the post office line (ironically I was doing just that last week so I can relate).  But sometimes “we year for something more.”  This is why the Google Book Search team has created  a platform that allows us to read books right from our phone.  That’s right, Google Book Search has gone mobile with over 1.5 million mobile public domain books in the U.S.

Best of all these books have been optimized to read on a small device.  This makes me question whether this was an effort to take on the Kindle directly.  After all it is rumored that Amazon has sold at least a million of those things.  By making millions of books available to anyone with a mobile device for free, why buy a Kindle?

The biggest advantage of the Kindle is that books are downloaded on the device.  The Internet is not required to read books like it is for Google Book Search.  The Kindle is ideal for use on airplanes.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I get most of my reading done when flying the friendly skies.   I think the only thing stopping me from buying the Kindle is the $359 starting price.  And when Google throws books at me for free… to go… It makes me want to buy the Kindle less.  What are your thoughts?

[via Google Book Search blog]

Amazon Payments, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has announced today that they have made the Amazon Flexible Payment Services (Amazon FPS) and the Amazon FPS Quick Starts available.  Amazon FPS Quick Starts aggregates Amazon FPS APIs into a simplified set of APIs that makes it easier for developers to process transactions on their websites.  This includes one time payments, recurring payments, and pre-payments.

Amazon FPS is the first payment service designed from the ground up specifically for developers.  The FPS system will now allow developers to accept payments directly from Amazon’s millions of customers. Between today and March 15, any developer that signs up and launches their applications by June 1, 2009 will get free payment processing for the first 90 days.  More information can be found at www.amazonpayments.com/fps.

“Developers have been excited about the flexibility that Amazon FPS offers and the wide range of innovative business cases it enables. Developers have asked us for an easier way to get started and tools that would enable them to make the most of the Amazon FPS feature set. This release incorporates this feedback by introducing Amazon FPS Quick Starts, which significantly simplifies integration while maintaining all the flexibility that Amazon FPS provides,” stated Mark Stabingas, General Manager of Amazon Payments. “Developers can now choose the Amazon FPS Quick Start that meets their unique business needs and monetize their innovations quickly.”

Amazon FPS Quick Start includes Basic Quick Start (one-time payments for e-commerce), Advanced Quick Start (period or delayed payments for usage-based services), Marketplace Quick Start (building marketplace apps), Aggregated Payments quick Start (consolidation of multiple transactions), and Account Management Quick Start (simplifies integrating account activity).

Amazon.com has posted a 9% increase in fourth quarter net income and an 18% rise in sales.  As a result, Amazon’s shares rose to over $56 per share in after hours trading.  This past holiday season, Amazon had their best ever despite the challenges faced by all retail companies.  Amazon reported a net income of $225 million for the quarter, up from $207 million a year ago.  Net sales increased 18% to $6.7 billion.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com mentioned that the Kindle ebook reader helped with the increase in net income.  But Bezos did not disclose how many units were sold.  Amazon sold out of Kindles for the second consecutive holiday season.  Amazon expects their first quarter sales to grow about 9-19% or about $4.53 billion to $4.93 billion.  Wall Street projects growth to be about 11%.

Gross margin slid to 20.1% from 20.6%.  Amazon.com’s free shipping, lower prices, and expanded product lines provided Amazon the opportunity to gain market share from a lot of their competition.  Amazon’s international sales increased by 19% to $3.07 billion.  A lot of Amazon.com’s increase in profit is due to people favoring fixed price websites over auctions like eBay.com.