Posted 04/15/09 at 04:29:48 PM by Andy Salisbury

Over this past weekend a reported glitch caused 57,310 books, primarily those with gay and lesbian themes, to lose their important sales ranking on Amazon. The sales ranking, which allows users of Amazon to find best sellers easier, is important not only to potential readers but to authors as well. And, while according to Amazon it was “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” that caused the removal, a hacker is taking credit as well.

While Amazon maintains that the error was caused by a “glitch in our systems,” a (yet unnamed) hacker took credit for it, claiming that he used bugs on Amazon to trick people into flagging gay-themed books as inappropriate. The whole issue even caught the attention of Twitter users, who began using the hash tag “#amazonfail.”

Though, according to Mark R. Probst, author of “The Filly,” a gay western romance aimed at young adults, “I believe it was an error. I don’t think it was anything malicious they were trying to do.”

However, others aren’t so easily convinced. Author Daniel Mendelsohn, whose memoir “The Elusive Embrace” lost its ranking, says, “There are mistakes and there are mistakes. At some point in this process, which I don’t understand because I’m not a computer genius, the words gay and lesbian were clearly flagged, as well as some kind of porno tag. I say, do I want my book in anyone’s mind to be equivalent to a porno? And the answer is no.”

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Posted 12/29/08 at 11:13:05 AM by Paul Lilly

Despite a weakened economy, holiday shoppers didn't skip a beat this year, at least not at Amazon.com. The company reported it had never seen a better holiday shopping season in its 14-year history, which included 6.3 million items ordered on December 15th, or nearly 73 items every second. Between November 15 and December 10, Amazon sold a copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 about every 2.5 minutes. And in a particularly oddball statistic, Amazon.com says that the weight of all GPS devices sold from Black Friday through December was equal to that of 151 Mini Coopers. We don't know how many GPS units that breaks down to, but it sounds like an awful lot.

Nintendo's Wii console remained a hot seller, as did the Wii remote and Wii nunchuk controller. In consumer electronics, Samsung's 52" 120Hz LCD HDTV, the Apple iPod touch 8GB, and the Acer Aspire One 8.9" netbook with 160GB hard drive led the pack.

According to Comscore, heavy snowfall benefited online stores as shoppers chose to stay in rather than battle the weather and crowds.

"Online spending over the most recent weekend was clearly substantially heavier than the corresponding weekend nearest Christmas last year, which suggests that many consumers opted for the cozier confines of online shopping rather than having to brave the severe cold and snowstorms affecting much of the northern half of the country,” said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

But even though this was Amazon's best holiday shopping season ever, ComScore estimates that through December 21, online shoppers spent $24.71 billion on the internet, down 1 percent versus the same period in 2007.

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Posted 11/03/08 at 05:07:38 PM by Alex Castle

You've bought computer parts online, right? If you have, then we're sure you've experienced the Herculean ordeal of trying to free a delicate little part (say, a memory card) from its nigh-unbreakable PVC prison. Well, today Amazon has shown that they feel our pain, announcing a new initiative to eventually offer all their products with less obnoxious, extraneous packaging.

The initiative extends beyond tech stuff and beyond just PVC blister packs. The retail giant says that the plan won't just save our fingers, but the environment too. For instance, the press release says that for a single toy pirate ship, the new packaging "eliminates 36 inches of plastic-coated wire ties, 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts and 36.1 square inches of printed folding carton materials. Also eliminated are 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners."

For right now Amazon's only going to be offering the new packaging on items from certain sourcces, like Microsoft and Transcend, but says "our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging."

Sounds pretty good, right? Do you think we can expect other retailers to follow suit? Let us know after the break.

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Posted 07/10/08 at 07:36:54 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Cut off the supply for a product that people still want, and the demand skyrockets. Windows XP is the product, and Amazon.com's Software Bestseller list proves that Windows XP is still a hot item. CNet reports that Windows XP ranks high on the Amazon.com best-selling software list. So, how popular is Windows XP? How does Windows Vista compare? And, where else can you buy Windows XP in the wake of its retail discontinuance by Microsoft?

For the answers, catch us after the break.

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Posted 06/25/08 at 01:42:09 PM by Chris Moody

Amazon.com founder, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board, Jeff Bezos through Bezos Expeditions (his investment company) has invested in Twitter and just accepted a seat on their board of directors. readwriteweb.com says, “the money will be spent on building up its infrastructure and reliability to become the communications utility it needs to be before it can become profitable.”
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The addition of Jeff Bezos as an advisor is a big deal for Twitter. On their blog, they says he is more than “an investor and advisor because he is also an inspiration.” They go on to say that, “Jeff's attention to business process details and distinctive, "honk-like laugh" are similarly admirable traits as far as we're concerned.”

If you’d like to see Twitter in action, visit Maximum PC Editor in Chief Will Smith’s Twitter site.

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Posted 01/04/08 at 04:12:21 PM by Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper

The biggest name in PC graphics goes head-to-head with the PC nerd's best friend when it's end of the year shopping time. Find out who delivers the goods, and who delivers a headache instead.

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Posted 11/30/07 at 12:35:17 AM by Erin Simon

When a federal prosecutor tries to subpoena the book-purchasing records of thousands of customers, Amazon stands up for its customers' First Amendment Rights

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