Amazon Remembers: Make It Easy for Your Customer

Amazon releases an iPhone/iPod Touch app today that shows just how well they understand how the potential of smartphones.

The app itself is not revolutionary (at base, it’s just a way for people to browse products available at Amazon and subsidiaries). However, a new feature called Amazon Remembers allows consumers to snap a pic of a product, upload it to Amazon and have Amazon products like it shown to them.

Could the Recession Help Small Bookstores?

Will this recession bring about the death of the stand-alone big box store? With the October announcement of Linens n Things folding (sorry) and reports of Black Friday sales migrating to online retailers, Michael Cairn’s perspective at TeleRead makes for some interesting reading.

Cairns suggests that the recession driven toppling of the suburban-sprawling big box stores, there may be even more opportunity for eBooks.

Honest to POD: Random Collection

Starting in January, Random House will be selling new copies of out-of-print books via a new e-commerce website called the Random Collection. The site will start with 750 titles, will be searchable and allow for feedback from booksellers and other customers on suggestions for future titles.

Some, like Joseph Esposito at Publishing Frontier and Mike Shatzkin at IdeaLogical, have suggested that this plan doesn’t work if the goal is brand-extension.