Go Amazon!

After reading the article, "Can Amazon Be Wal-Mart of the Web," featured in the New York Times, I began to question: Are there really that many people out there who make their purchases online? Well, apparently, "Amazon is quickly becoming the world's general store."

Ever since Jeffrey P. Bezos founded the company as just a bookstore, it has recently become so much more, selling almost anything you can think of from car parts to even cars! According to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, he believes that the Amazon market will grow to 15% of retail in the next decade. "If Amazon grows their market share throughout that period, and honestly I don't see anything stopping it, that is pretty scary." But if this is the case, what will smaller retailers and even companies like Wal-Mart do to keep business going?

Amazon has no plans to step down, either. In fact, their popularity has been growing even more rapidly because of their fast delivery and free shipping and handling promises. Not to mention the growing number of people who sell their own products on Amazon, in which Amazon itself takes in 15% of the profits. Despite Amazon's success, however, some employees and executives are shocked to see how much their company has grown. "It means we are becoming increasingly important in the lives of our customers, which has been our mission from the beginning," Amazon's senior vice president of North American retail has said. "We had the chance to earn the trust of the customer beyond media, and we took it."

Although I have never bought or sold anything off of Amazon personally, I think people will start re-thinking their buying strategies and where they shop for their products. One problem with ordering through a magazine or online is the heavy duty add-on of shipping and handling. So now that Amazon has offered it for free, I think people will reconsider where they shop. Also, with the holiday's not too far off, shopping online is a great way to buy gifts since Amazon offers almost anything you can imagine; there's definitely something for everyone.

Google's New Reading Service

After reading the article "Google Releases News-Reading Service," I was happy to hear that Google has decided to come up with a new and improved way of reading newspaper and/or magazine articles online. As mentioned in this article, and from personal experience, it is at times difficult to load articles from news sites. I think the addition of Fast Flip will be a major benefit for all online users that experience the same problem.

With major corporations getting involved, such as The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and Newsweek, I would have to agree with the chief executive of Salon Media Group, Richard Gingras. According to him, "I don't look at this as the solution to the future of journalism. But who knows? We will learn from it." However, I think that the way that it is designed is an appropriate set-up. Appearing as a collection of images, "stories are displayed side by side in various horizontal rails that show stories arranged by popularity." Fast Flip also deletes the ads that would usually be shown, as well as featuring the opportunity to zoom into a particular section of the article.

I think it will be beneficial just for the fact of being able to read exactly what you want, and you can take exactly what you want from a certain article. "We are helping people immerse themselves in the context," says Krishna Bharat, a Google researcher.