I Love Amazon
In our home, Amazon is the equivalent of the shopping mall. I was playing golf with Josh last weekend and he said he wanted to buy some golf balls. I told him he should pick out his favorite brand and buy a case of them. His reply was "I’ll go on Amazon when we get home". That’s the way it is in our home.
And today, we got to add digital downloads of mp3s to the list of things we can buy on Amazon. It works just like eMusic. You install a small "downloader" on your machine and after that the experience is just like buying anything else on Amazon. You can check out via One Click and within minutes all the files are on your laptop, in mp3 format so you can play them wherever you want, including a Sonos system.
I bought my first record via download on Amazon today. Challengers by The New Pornographers. We’ve been listening to it on Rhapsody and the kids want it on their iPods and I want it on Sonos. It’s not on eMusic and it’s not on iTunes in non-DRM format yet. But Amazon has it the way I want it. Awesome.
I love Amazon just a little more today.
Comments (Archived):
That’s funny; that’s the same album I downloaded yesterday from Amazon yesterday. Good stuff
even funnier, I downloaded that album this morning.
was just discussing this the other day re: amazon – how it’s a very discreet and often taken for granted pioneer. i have used amazon for many years and it’s never let me down – a fantastic service and a very well designed web site that shows just because it’s a commerce/retail site it doesn’t have to look like a dog’s breakfast.re: new pornographers – saw them live at the bowery in 2003 – i recall my partner coming over for the weekend (she was still living in the uk) and me taking her to the gig – when she asked who we were going to see she was mortified by their name, lol.a very under-rated band. discreet, innovative and classy – just like amazon in fact!
I, too, love Amazon a lot more today. I’m a lot more encouraged for the digital music space now that they finally entered with a worthy competitor to iTunes.
If you have an iPhone, you’ll love that they’ve introduced an optimized version of their site for it. While not as full featured as the full store, it’s a quick way to order what you’re looking for. I stopped in Barnes and Noble last week looking for a few tech books, found the titles I was looking for and was immediately appalled at the price. A few minutes later, thanks to Amazon and the magic of my iPhone, the books were ordered (at a much nicer price) while I was still standing in Barnes and Noble. Yes, I could have snapped a photo of the cover of the book with the iphone’s camera and placed my order later, but it made me feel slightly disruptive to order it in the store.
This has made my day.The margins are so slim in this business. I wonder what kind of ‘halo’ effect Amzn is expecting?
It doesn’t get any better than that. It will be interesting to see how this plays out… bets on how the general consumer that purchases on itunes reacts?
My biggest problem with Amazon is their browsing system. It’s horrible. Everyone and their dog can add products, some years out of date, and muck up the system. Most of the times I’m only interested in Amazon Prime items and there’s no easy filter: show me only Prime items!!!!!If I know what I want, Amazon is a dream, especially with Amazon Prime and One-Click. If they could only fix their browsing issues…… Or someone could create one on their API.
ha! I’m glad I’m not the only one griping about the lack of filters for Prime items. Truthfully, I think this is ommitted for a good reason. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to come up with why…
I noticed the new system for downloading yesterday. It’s a great move. I’ve had the new album for a few weeks now and it’s very good although many say not as good as Twin Cinema. It’s a good group, but the prevalent talent in it is Neko Case; she has the most beautiful voice and sings a wonderfully eclectic mix of genres. Check her out, her live albums are in my opinion her best work.Additionally, the Weakerthans just came out with their new CD Reunion Tour and it’s worth a listen. Once you really listen to that band, you are hooked.
It works like eMusic, except it’s better in some ways, since you can buy from Amazon on demand, where eMusic wants you to subscribe.
Amazon is like a utility – it always seems to work. I’ve never been to the site when it has been down, slow or otherwise balky. Amazing Amazon.