Amazon | Internet Marketing Blog

Google launches Compute Engine to compete with Amazon

In the .com boom of the 1990s, companies building a presence on the nascent commercial web bought servers and put them in data centers. In many cases, this costly approach was a necessity.

Fast forward to today. Some of the most popular sites on the internet -- run by large, established companies and young startups alike -- don't own servers, and they've never set foot inside a data center thanks to cloud services like Amazon AWS.

by Patricio Robles 28 June 2012 22:05pm 4 comments

Amazon turns data on its own Marketplace retailers: report

For many small retailers, Amazon is an important source of customers and revenue thanks to the retail giant's Marketplace, which lets third parties hawk their wares on Amazon.com.

But some retailers selling through Amazon's Marketplace are learning the hard way that doing business through a potential competitor can be a double-edged sword with a very sharp blade.

by Patricio Robles 28 June 2012 16:00pm 3 comments

Google unveils the Nexus 7 tablet

The popularity of Google's Android may ensure that Google will play a prominent role in the smartphone market for years to come, but its future in the tablet space is anything but guaranteed.

Apple's iPad is the tablet standard, and lower-end competitors like the Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet use forked versions of Android that Google can't control or monetize. For a variety of reasons, Google hasn't thus far been able to rely on third party manufacturers to build a killer Android tablet.

And it's unlikely to get easier for the search giant any time soon.

by Patricio Robles 27 June 2012 19:31pm 2 comments

ICANN reveals new gTLD applications

After lots of media attention, speculation and intrigue, ICANN today finally revealed which organizations applied for new gTLDs and which gTLDs they applied for.

All told, ICANN received 1,930 applications, well more than the 1,200-plus figure previously cited. Each applicant ponied up $185,000 per application just for the privilege of applying.

by Patricio Robles 13 June 2012 19:56pm 3 comments

Pinterest joins the billion dollar club with $100m funding from Rakuten

A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

The words made famous by the movie that dramatized Facebook's beginnings may soon be passé in Silicon Valley, as investors clamouring to get in on funding rounds for the hottest tech startups seem increasingly willing to put their cash in at billion-dollar valuations.

Crazy? Perhaps, but Facebook's $1bn Instagram acquisition shows that big valuations don't exclude companies from the startup lottery, at least for the time being.

The latest entrant to the billion dollar club will be Pinterest, thanks to a $100m funding round led by Rakuten. The funding round puts a $1.5bn valuation on Pinterest.

by Patricio Robles 17 May 2012 10:37am 0 comments

Harry Potter is coming to Amazon, the Kindle

The Harry Potter series is one of the most popular series of books ever written, but if you're looking for your fix of wizardry, you'll have to put your Kindle down.

That's because Harry Potter's author, J.K. Rowling, has refused to sell her books in digital format directly through companies like Amazon.

by Patricio Robles 10 May 2012 15:29pm 2 comments

Facebook launches its own app store

Facebook has built a multi-billion dollar ecosystem with its application platform, but much of the growth of that platform has been driven by social games created by companies like Zynga.

In an effort to help the 900m-plus Facebook users discover apps of all shapes and sizes, and create new monetization opportunities for app developers, Facebook yesterday announced the launch of its own app store, the App Center.

by Patricio Robles 10 May 2012 10:18am 1 comment

Managing the flood of big data: infographic

As large web companies are selling us on the value of big data, they are also peddling their own cloud services to help you make sense of all the information you feel compelled to process.

Just as Amazon Web Services is showing how it's changing businesses with its scalable and affordable data and analytic services, IBM has been developing its own solution with Netezza, an acquisition they made in 2010.

by Heather Taylor 07 May 2012 19:13pm 2 comments

Microsoft forms partnership with B&N, invests $300m in NOOK business

Thanks to Amazon's dominance, it's easy to forget that traditional bookseller Barnes & Noble (B&N) has managed to build a decent digital portfolio of its own.

In the past, that has sparked speculation that B&N would eventually spin off its NOOK division, freeing its digital business from the baggage of its brick-and-mortar business.

by Patricio Robles 30 April 2012 16:08pm 0 comments

Kindle Fire now represents over half of Android tablets: report

Thanks to testimony in the Oracle-Google lawsuit over the use of Java in Android, we now know just how high Google's hopes for Android were in 2011.

According to Google VP Andy Rubin, the search giant was looking for Android tablets to account for 33% of the tablet market last year. The good news for Google was that the launch of Amazon's Kindle Fire may have brought Google within striking distance of that figure.

by Patricio Robles 27 April 2012 17:45pm 0 comments