Into The Unknown

While digital sales are continuing in their year-on-year upward trend, it seems that customers still need a gentle push to buy digital music. Even one of the largest digital music retailers, Amazon.com, is having to effectively subsidise purchases with their latest promotion. I saw it sneak onto the web site for some items yesterday; the skinny's on their web site but here's the 10 second summary:

Add at least one qualifying CD, vinyl, cassette or DVD music item offered in the Amazon.com Music store to your Shopping Cart and complete the purchase or complete the purchase through 1-Click ordering. The music items that qualify are CD, vinyl, cassette and DVD music items offered in the Amazon.com Music store that display the offer message on their product information pages. Amazon MP3 music downloads and other music items not displaying the offer message, and all other types of items, fail to qualify for this promotional offer.

After completing your purchase, you will receive an email indicating that a $1 credit for Amazon MP3 music downloads has been applied to your account automatically.

There are some other T&Cs, but that's about the gist of it. The promotion's only valid on certain marked items (for example this DVD-Audio release of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road), but it seems to apply to a good proportion of Universal's featured Motown releases as well as other popular stuff from other labels (the promo was also present on the SACD version of Dark Side Of The Moon).

So, maybe an excuse to do some shopping?

Steve Fossett, known to many as an incredibly intrepid and fearless explorer, has been missing for a number of weeks now. Amazon's helping in the search for him (and his plane) by offering the services of their Mechanical Turk online utility, but a key part of this system is you - the user. Nothing can replace the subtlety and dynamism of the human brain, and they're encouraging as many volunteers as possible to help join the search.

For more info, and to participate, go to the Amazon Mechanical Turk page for Fossett's search, where there's further instructions and related info on the MTurk project itsself. Amazon themselves describe Mechanical Turk as a system where you, "complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it. Choose from thousands of tasks, control when you work, and decide how much you earn." The Fossett search is unpaid, but definitely worth it if you have any time to spare. Nothing beats the human brain for this kind of thing, and I wouldn't trust a computer alone with the search, so know you're helping a worthwhile cause!

As mad as it may seem, Amazon(.com) has come a long way from its origins of hard- and paper back books. For a long time it's sold electronics, watches, healthcare items, later expanding into home and garden products, and even jewellery and clothing.

I received an interesting email from Amazon Associates this morning, though... And when I clicked through from the email, I was greeted with this:

• We offer more than 22,000 non-perishable grocery items--and [their] selection is growing every day
• We can ship all products for free, via Super Saver Shipping, Amazon Prime, or free standard shipping
• We have great everyday prices plus special offers on your favorite brands
• We make it exceptionally easy to find products you buy routinely, or to discover new items we think you'll like

It looks like they're serious about this! The list of items they sell is huge; from baby food to canned fruit, cereals, pet supplies, herbs and seasoning, even pet food. Some of the ready meals ('boxed meals'? How quaint) have made me mighty hungry to boot, so I'll be diving into the kitchen shortly to warm up the other half of last night's dinner (because being a student, I always cook for two nights then stick the next night's worth in the fridge!)


I'm a UK resident so Amazon Grocery hasn't quite made its way across the pond yet. However, I'm sure that when it does, I'll be one of the first to give it a spin and see how it fares. I'm not entirely sure what'd happen if I ordered a book and some Coco Pops in one go though - would they just squash the cereal into one of those book-sized cardboard packages?

What about if I ordered mayonnaise? Hmm...