Web Informant #350, 12 November 2003: Amazon opens up

Web Informant #350, 12 November 2003: Amazon opens up: "Contrast what Amazon is doing with what the music recording industry is doing. It is the difference between writing code and writing legal briefs, or launching programmers vs. deploying lawyers. Rather than encourage people to use their backend systems and search their catalogs, the music business is doing everything they can to keep their customers away with lawsuits, tough talk and heavy-handed tactics to encrypt new music CDs and other instruments of technological torture. According to Amazon, sales of books with the 'search inside' feature have been stronger than books that don't have the feature, showing you that the more information you give shoppers and the more control over their content in the context of a purchase/decision stream, the more your sales will increase. And the combination of new support for Web services and the search features are two powerful reasons that Amazon will continue to lead by example in this area."