Amazon

Free Books for your Amazon Kindle

Merlin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:45:05 -0400

My pick of the week on the latest episode of MacBreak Weekly wasn't so much my new Kindle (which I do like a lot), but rather a few services that make it easier to find and download free books you can read on the Kindle. These picks included Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.net, and the wonderful Feedbooks.

Feedbooks is the service I highlighted as being the most interesting of the three to me since you can download one Kindle/Mobi book (more info) containing clickable links to hundreds (thousands?) of free and Creative Commons-licensed books that can be downloaded directly to your Kindle, usually in less than a minute or so. Zesty. Hello, 1984 and A Princess of Mars.

In addition to all the great stuff Andy has enumerated, these free book services have made me see the Kindle as a flawed but fascinating game-changer. More tips and buying advice coming soon (short version: it ain't for everybody, by a long shot, but it's surprisingly great for commuters and travelers who devour novels in particular).

And, if you're still hungry for more Kindle-friendly book sites, check out Free Kindle Books and Free Ebooks Online. The post contains a large collection of links that can help fill your reader in no time.

”Free Books for your Amazon Kindle” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 06, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Preemptively Save Christmas '08 with the Amazon Gift Organizer

Merlin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:23:58 -0500

Amazon.com : Amazon Gift Central

With the holidays' major combat operations now complete -- but while the trauma of bell fatigue and the stink of Orange Julius are still fresh in your mind -- I wanted to share a simple tip on something that was really useful to me this past Christmas and that might make your own life easier for next December or any other giftable event along the way.

So, you certainly know that you can create an Amazon Wish List to let people locate and purchase items you would enjoy having as gifts; that's been around forever (and most needy cam girls have the iPods and panties to prove it). And you may even have caught on that you can now have multiple Wish Lists (with differing privacy settings). And if you're a power user (read: "Amazon Prime dork"), you will surely be utilizing the very helpful Shopping List for finding and re-ordering repeat items like printer toner and blank CDs. But were you aware of the crazy-useful "Gift Organizer?" Well, okay, then.

Amazon has been smart about combining several pieces of existing functionality to create the Gift Organizer. For example, you'll probably start simply by identifying the wish list of a friend or family member. That's pretty useful, because you can see when birthdays and anniversaries are arriving in order to gift accordingly, plus, what's better than giving someone something they actually want? Quick win, there.

But then it gets better. Once the folks in your gifty circle are identified, you can also start bookmarking gift ideas that might be nice to give them in the future. So, as you surf Amazon and notice stuff that might be cool for Mom or Aunt Sue or that nice UPS man, just click "Add to Wish List" and select the person it's intended for. Into the hopper it goes. Ubiquitous capture. Swish.

Furthermore, as you purchase actual things for the people in your circle, Amazon lets you identify who the items were gifted to (you can even clean up your recent purchase history this way). That information gets stored in your per-gifted-person area where you can continue to add new ideas for future gifts from any Amazon item page (again, very much like adding to your own wish list, but for others). On top of it all, Amazon will then employ their awesome collaborative filtering to suggest more items that this person may like, and the music goes 'round.

Now, the cool part of all this -- even if you don't use Amazon very much -- is that Amazon.com is friggin huge. Which means that they (or their "Marketplace" partners) carry a ridiculously high percentage of the purchasable, shippable items available in the consumer universe. So, if you start using the Gift Organizer today -- even for stuff you have no intention of buying from Amazon -- your life is going to be much easier the next time a gift-giving occasion rolls around; you've capitalized on several months of passive, half-assed attention to actually do something useful.

Other ideas? One might be to create a few notional gift recipients to represent clients, co-workers, or the other compulsory gift recipients in your life; finding that clever, inexpensive gift at your leisure is a lot less stressful than having to tear ass on December 21st.

In an ideal world, giving gifts to your pals shouldn't feel like a stressful race. If your heart is willing but your tolerance for malls is weak, try giving the Gift Organizer a spin. You can always make your own Orange Julius.

”Preemptively Save Christmas '08 with the Amazon Gift Organizer” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 22, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Amazon launches sale of DRM-free MP3s

Merlin — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:35:30 -0400

Daring Fireball: The Amazon MP3 Store and Amazon MP3 Downloader

Given the Amazon MP3 Store’s audio quality, prices, and user experience, I can’t see why anyone would buy DRM-restricted music from iTunes that’s available from Amazon. And given that Amazon is quite a bit cheaper than iTunes Plus, you might as well check Amazon first. I plan to.

I'm with Gruber -- this is a welcome and fan-friendly addition to the marketplace. And, frankly, I'm glad there's finally somebody out there who can really give Apple some competition in this area.

One thing: I'm surprised that MP3 sales links aren't yet mixed into regular CD sales pages. That must certainly be high on their TODO list. Because Amazon's Google juice is strong as hell, and on the day they put "Buy This Track Now" onto a few dozen thousand PR5+ music pages? Well. That may be the day Apple gets to really see what competition in this space looks like.

”Amazon launches sale of DRM-free MP3s” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 25, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"