Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about.
Back in May we wrote about how Newegg was joining Amazon in charging taxes in New York.
It looks as though Amazon's Kindle is going to turn out to be more of a success and a moneymaker than many people ever expected. It will be if what CitiGroup analyst Mark Mahaney says is correct. He says that in 2008, Amazon will sell about 380,000 units which is about double of what he originally said would sell.
If you shop Amazon.com frequently for books for whatever reason, maybe because they are more affordable than your local bookstore, but you miss the experience of actually looking at books on the shelf, checkout Zoomii.
A nifty little program called Amazon Watcher can save you from those "" moments. What it can do is watch any item on Amazon, and then notify you when the price has dropped or when an item becomes available.
Amazon's DRM-free music service is really appealing these days. When it launched last September it got rave reviews because of the ease of use and the attractive prices, not to mention that whole DRM-free aspect. It was appealing when it launched and it's getting even more appealing these days because of the situation we're seeing with Yahoo right now.
Yesterday was a big day for Amazon as they began rolling out to beta testers Amazon Video on Demand, a video streaming service. This is the successor to Amazon Unbox, a video on demand service launched by Amazon in 2006. Unbox hasn't become the hit they suspected, partially because of the hassles involved with downloading the movies before being able to watch them.
In the fall of 2008 Princeton will join the ranks of Yale, Oxford, and UC Berkeley by offering some textbooks on Amazon's Kindle e-reader. The Kindle sells for $359 by Amazon, and uses Sprint's high-speed EVDO data network to let customers download new books on-the-go. The device has actually been more popular than I anticipated, and it's now catching the attention of universities.
Rumor has it that Amazon is planning to launch some type of e-commerce business to allow payments and money transfers which will compete with PayPal. Some of you probably know that Amazon already has their Amazon Payments service that allows you to send and receive money, and shop with your mobile phone, but it's limited to Amazon and "their partners."
The Al l Things D conference is going on right now and one of the most interesting things to come from it was when Walt Mossburg was interviewing Jeff Bezos, founder, president, and chief executive offer of Amazon.com. Bezos announced that within the next couple of weeks, Amazon will be launching a streaming movie service that users will pay for.
Back in mid-April, we wrote about a new Bill that was signed in New York called the "Amazon Tax Bill." It forces retailers to charge sales tax to customers who live in the state of New York which then provides the state with an extra $50 million in revenue. We mentioned at the time that if ever there was a way to kill online retailers, this could be it.
Often times, the Internet is used for answering questions. A user goes to their search engine of choice, types in a question, and receives links that may direct them to the answer.
--WinRAR--
Over in our forum Max noticed that it was possible to get a free version of WinRAR compliments of PC Welt (the German edition of PC World Magazine). It's been nearly two years since a free version of WinRAR was being handed out, and it's coming back around once again. This time, however, you don't get the absolutely latest version of the app.
Well that didn't take long! Amazon is fighting back against the state of New York over their "Amazon Tax Bill" which now forces retailers to charge sales tax to customers who live in the state of New York.
If you've bought anything from Amazon before, you know that many of the products they sell are eligible for "Free Super Saver Shipping." With the offer, if you spend at least $25 dollars on eligible products, you'll get free shipping. It's as simple as that.
Each day Amazon has a new Deal of the Day, but today's deal is an extra good deal if you're in the market for a new cell phone and you're already an AT&T subscriber or you plan to switch to them.
Any successful business owner knows that one of the most important aspects to any business is branding which goes hand-in-hand with marketing. When a company or product has been successfully branded, people will be able to recognize it and will be more likely to use it because it's familiar (brand loyalty).
One of the great things about buying from Amazon is that unless you live in the state of Washington (where Amazon is headquartered), you do not need to pay sales tax. That means a lot of people are able to save money purchasing from the giant online retailer.
It looks as though Google is aiming to compete with Amazon's S3 by launching the Google App Engine.
Over the last year or so, we have watched as Apple's iTunes has become an ever increasing influence in the music industry. It was just last June (2007) when they passed Amazon and took over the #3 position as largest music retailer in the United States.
