Amazon released widgets yesterday. Check out their website for more samples. Essentially, amazon widgets are a cute, eye candy rich widgets featuring amazon content such as CD covers, movie posters or even food products. Bloggers and social network users can embed these widgets on their web pages to add some colour and fun (again??).
The interesting aspect of Amazon widgets is that the website owners can make some cool cash. If for example, a visitor clicks an amazon movie poster, it would lead to the DVD page on amazon for that particular title. If the visitor buys the DVD, then the website owner can earn up to 10% in referral fees. Not bad! Definitely a neat way to get thousands of bloggers to embed these widgets and ultimately promote amazon.com in the long run.
In the widgets gallery, current offerings include slideshow (CD covers, book covers etc), My favourites, Wish List, Product Cloud, Unbox Video Previewer, Amazon Search, Text links amongst others.
I tested out the “My favourites” widget and found the process to be very intuitive and simple. A fast AJAX enabled search and customisation workflow quickly allows you to add items to the widget. You can set display options like widget width, title, colour and design. You’re then presented with options to add the finished widget to your blog of choice.
Overall, a neat attempt by Amazon to cash in on the widget craze and further promote their brand.
