Amazon would like you to…
Most of us in the business of designing or developing online products have this experience on a daily basis. You’re going about your business, walking down the street, eating breakfast, or whatever and you are suddenly seized with an idea… an idea you *know* will revolutionize some online industry or user experience. You look around furtively… can it be that no one has thought of this yet…? Then what typically happens is: nothing. Or, in my case, I periodically “remember” my idea and make a mental note to look into what it would take to build a prototype, launch a pilot, or otherwise dip a toe in the water without needing to completely abandon my current occupation and income stream. However, if you work at Amazon, your outcome is very different! Because one of the best things about being an online business with massive scale is that you have:
— an engineering group to cobble together a protoype
— a vast site architecture in which to test your new idea, and
— a mass of customers willing to take your idea for a spin
In other words, you can “throw something against the will and see if it sticks” or, if you prefer, “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” To put it more professionally: “you have the opportunity to test a prototype for your new idea in a low-risk, albeit ‘live’ environment, with real customers.” Call me crazy, but there’s something about Amazon’s new “So you’d like to” Guides that feels to me like something thrown against a wall or run up a flagpole. That doesn’t mean we don’t like it. We’ve previously cast doubt on some of Amazon’s experimental forays. But this one seems to make good sense and cannily taps into the current obsessive consumer need to broadcast one’s opinion and / or stake out multiple online territories (see: blogs, flickr, del.icio.us and social networking generally).
In concept, SYLTs are fairly simple. Think: Favorites List with Explanations…and public. Essentially, SYLTs are essays with imbedded links to products available for sale on Amazon. The interface to build a SYLT is just a free-form text entry box. When you want to reference a product you use a particular tag and that product’s ASIN/ISBN number. A tag for a section heading is the only other available formatting as far as I can see. The SYLTs are close cousins of Amazon Lists except that Lists impose a 200 character limit to the description you append to each product and use a more rigid (i.e “list”) format for the presentation. SYLTs strike me as more advanced, designed for the person who is as interested in expressing the “why” of their recommendations as opposed to just the collection itself. SYLTs are positioned as “guides” but the format can also clearly accomodate anyone with a particular point to make — in which case the product references act like a bibliography for the accompanying essay. For example, I’m unlikely to buy any of the books referenced Christopher Locke’s “So you’d like to… protect yourself from the Mystic Bourgeoisie,” but his verbal pyrotechnics make good reading nonetheless.
The obvious question is whether SYLT authors get a piece of the sales driven from their creations. The obvious answer is “No.” Similar to Lists, SYLTs are created for the sheer fun and pleasure of expressing your opinions. If you want to make money doing this, start a blog, become an Amazon Associate, then sit back and collect your money… assuming you are able to drive traffic to your site and get people to buy based on your recommendations.
