Apr 24 2007
Amazon does away with the Plog
Authors have been able to blog on Amazon and the results were then fed to your personalized blog which Amazon called a Plog. The problem is, apparently, that few posts ever made it to the reader’s Plog.
Amazon has now eliminated the blog and implemented Amazon Daily. Amazon Daily is available to all visitors, not just those who are signed in as customers. The user gets to personalize the page rather than Amazon choosing what content gets sent to you.
One feature that they have added is “Advanced Copy” which is a category for amazon bloggers to highlight upcoming books.
This is all part of Amazon’s attempt to be responsive to the growing Web 2.0 movement. You can read your Amazon Daily page through an RSS feed.
I was never a big user of the Plog, but probably because it was virtually useless. Further, I haven’t really seen much on the Amazon Blogs by Authors or Amazon that interests me.
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Apr 24, 2007 @ 08:57:12
I’ve been using the Plog/Amazon Daily thing, but only as a supplement to the book information they already give. For that, I think it’s handy — an author can add the back cover copy, a link to her site, excerpts, upcoming book info … which all-in-all add up to a lot more information than the one- or two-sentence book description.
But as a reader? Aside from that additional info, no, there isn’t much there that interest me, either. I definitely don’t go to Amazon to read an author’s blog.
Apr 24, 2007 @ 16:16:50
I’d echo Meljean. I used the plog to get backcover copy info/excerpt link up there and for that, it was very useful, both as a writer, and as a reader when I wanted info on a book I was thinking to buy.