The big three gadget blogs (Engadget, Gizmodo and CrunchGear) (ok, kidding about CrunchGear, but it is doing very well) have a little more competition starting today: a new gadget blog called End User. The site is published by Amazon.
The blog authors are all Amazon employees and write for EndUserBlog as well. This is the same model for a few other blogs that Amazon publishes (Omnivoracious, ChordStrike, etc.).
Most posts have links into Amazon to purchase whatever is being discussed, which helps Amazon directly and indirectly sell more stuff.
So far the Amazon blogs don’t have much in the way of a community – most posts have no comments, for example. My recommendation is for them to follow, interact with and link to lots of other blogs in their respective categories, and actually join into the conversation directly.
nice name. do they really care about the end user?
Amazon is starting to look like the next Google… they are creating their own ecosystem that is starting to compete with those who made it a success.
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
haha. Michael, I was about to ask since when these are the 3 biggest gadget blogs. but it is pretty fun. ya. i agree crunch gear is doing well, and i visit once in a while.
just ocassionally john biggs posts some weird not understandable posts here at TC that confuses me.
first of all, you can’t post comments, because their ‘typepad’ install is having a heart attack on submit, and theres no server side url rewrite for entering the non www url….how lame…anyways, i guess its a good idea for them…
btw. MA, I am glad to see you posting news about other blogs/ community as well. That gives us more choice. if you could focus more on smaller startups over start up from ppl who you have connection with, that would be awesome. I think you would get a lot more respect that the “hot web 2.0 blogger that I can use to boost my startup.”
i hope you understand what I mean.
Thank you for all your comments. We are working on fixing the rewrite issue as this is typed up!
-End User Blog
They are probably looking for organic search results (SEO) as much as user interest and participation in the commmunity. Plus they know that reviews build conversion activity based on their onsite product reviews
Best Wishes EUB Team! Good luck with your new initiative..! Rock n Roll!
BTW, Micheal .. were you saying they were smart or was this post was to mock Amazon! Good one though..!
!
Actually, I think crunch gear could be considered the in that gadget blog list. After engadget and gizmodo they’re probably #3. I have about 7 gadget blogs in my RSS reader, so I read them all, I CG would definitely get my vote.
Amazon’s not the first shopping site/engine to go this route. Shopping.com has a general blog on their site, I think Smarter.com might have something as well, and PriceGrabber has several blogs focused on different types of products.
Not to worry about their traffic– you can link to the Amazon blogs with your affiliate code in the link. A lot more incentive to link to a blog when you get to set you Amazon affiliate cookie for a month or 2 weeks or whatever it is.
RIP 2009.
I see Amazon added TechCrunch and others to their blogroll. Maybe those other big players will reciprocate. This post is a good start.
This is a good move on Amazon’s part. If employees list their favorite products along with deals and coupons for those products, the blog should provide Amazon with more sales. Employee posts should add to the “trust” factor.
I hope they put the “tech” blogs out of business.
College isn’t the place to go for ideas.
http://www.papagogadget.com