That is the number of Kindles, the Amazon reader for electronic books, sold since the end of 2007. Is that a lot? Well, it’s 120,000 units more than Ipod sold during its first year …
After several failed attempts of the e-book, the product of the famous on-line bookseller appeals! Maybe not by its design, which reminds me of the latest Minitel terminals, but rather by its capacities and functions.
With a free permanent high-speed internet connection, the Kindle Store’s huge library is always easily accessible for downloading books.
Other advantages: access to daily newspapers in real-time, a dictionary, Wikipedia and over 250 blogs!
The Kindle 2is set to hit shelves in the United States on February 24th, and will be sold for the same price as the original version: $359. There is currently no word on the Kindle 2‘s European launch, but I am impatiently awaiting it!
Spiegel has published a few examples of funny jokes that are hiding in programs and sites that we are using everyday without knowing it. I have quickly summarised the findings in a few lines:
Firefox: Checkout the address “about:robots” and this page will show you a new interesting site! The robots want to communicate with us humans!
Yahoo Yodeling: Some years ago there was dispute about that Yahoo Yodel, which is actually still hidden on the site. Go to the Yahoo.com site and click on the “!” in the Yahoo logo in the top-banner.
Amazon: Check out the hidden special thanks to David Risher, former Amazon employee, by clicking on an invisible image below the copyright note on the bottom of the category overview page.
Picasa: if you want to see funny teddy bears, open your picasa and type “ctrl+shift+y” at the same time and you will see teddy bears appear!
Google Reader: if you want to see ninja’s in your google reader type the famous konami code: “↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A” and ninjas will appear in your reader.
These hidden gags are quite funny. Do you know of any other ones?
We know that Social Shopping is the big thing in e-commerce now, which has brought up many interesting players such as Edelight, DaWanda, Smatch or Shoppero.
We recently mentionned TripBase, a new travel website providing results based on user preferences and profiles; we also told you LetsBuyIt was going to be a personalized shopping portal, based on your user preferences.
Well, we have to recognize that Amazon does a VERY good job in customizing its website according to its users’ profiles. For every search, it promptly shows you a personalized home page, with customized items:
Category of products you’ve bought
Category of products you’ve searched
Similar products to those you have already bought
They even tell you what people ultimately buy after viewing a product: