Just dump all of the episodes at once – that’s the Netflix way. They did it with Lilyhammer, House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and Arrested Development. You might have assumed that all streaming services would follow suit, releasing all of the episodes of their own original series at the same time. And you wouldn’t have been wrong to assume that.

But apparently, your assumption is wrong. According to the producers of a new Amazon original series, that’s not the way they’re going to play it.

Back in April, Amazon debuted 14 pilots, put them up for free, and took user feedback. From that feedback, Amazon made some cuts and decided to greenlight five new series: Alpha House, Betas, Annebots, Creative Galaxy, and Tumbleaf.

Jonathan Alter, former Newsweek columnist and author, is an executive producer on one of those series – Alpha House. That show stars John Goodman and was written by Doonesbury‘s Garry Trudeau. It’s about four U.S. Senators who live together in a rented house in Washington D.C. Alter recently told The Wrap that Amazon was not going to release all of the new Alpha House episodes at the same time.

“It hasn’t been entirely determined how they’ll put it out. But it will be a different model than the one used by Netflix,” he said.

That’s interesting and it shows that Amazon isn’t afraid to buck the trend set by Netflix – even if that trend is proving popular with viewers. Binge watching has its benefits – mainly the absolute lack of any sort of forced delayed gratification. But it also can have its drawbacks, as some argue that the immediate availability dampens the buzz for any particular show by failing to keep it in the pop culture eye for more than a few weeks.

Alpha House is set to debut in the Fall.

Amazon has just announced Amazon Birthday Gift, a “new way for customers to surprise friends on their birthdays by joining together to send Amazon.com Gift Cards with birthday messages on Facebook.”

It’s pretty simple, really. Let’s say that you want to send an Amazon gift card to your buddy Phil for his birthday in a week. Simply head on over to the Amazon Birthday Gift page, create a new gift card, and select your amount. You can start the card with $1, $5, $10 or $25. Then, designate your Facebook friend recipient and write a birthday message. Then, invite friends (via Facebook) to contribute on the gift card. With any luck, you and your friends run up the pot enough to have a substantial amount waiting for Phil when his birthday actually arrives.

Phil won’t see the virtual card until his birthday.

“Birthdays have always been social occasions, and sites like Facebook now make it possible for anyone around the world to send birthday wishes to friends – with Amazon Birthday Gift, those many individual messages can become a big gift,” said Steve Shure, Amazon vice president, traffic. “Whether it’s your best friend or your old high school teammate, Amazon Birthday Gift lets you join a social gift that will grow as more friends participate, which makes giving and receiving birthday messages on Facebook even more fun.”

It’s an interesting move from Amazon, who dipped their toes in the birthday gift arena last year with their Friends and Family Gifting service. But the new Amazon Birthday Gift is a smart, easy-to-use gifting service that utilizes Facebook to make it run. Amazon is taking a swipe at Facebook’s own Gifts platform on its own turf – and Amazon has an obvious advantage: Amazon gift cards offer a vast array of product choices, as opposed to the limited choice offered by Facebook Gifts.

Still, Facebook can spend time promoting its own gifting platform inside the service – something that Amazon can’t really do. And we’ll have to wait and see if crowdsourced birthday gifting catches on.

That, it seems, is rapidly changing. In the wake of recent revelations regarding the NSA’s surveillance of American citizens the book has shot up Amazon’s bestseller rankings. One edition – the centennial edition – has seen sales increase by a staggering 5,800%, moving from 7,397th to 125th. Another edition has moved from 810th in the rankings to 209th. Other booksellers have reported similar spikes in sales, including Barnes & Noble and The Strand in New York City. The book is currently 43rd in the iBooks store’s top books list.

The book, in case you haven’t read it, tells the story of a totalitarian government run by the mysterious dictator Big Brother. The government engages in extensive surveillance and mind control of the populace (hence the phrase “Big Brother is watching you,” which appears on propaganda materials in the book).

1984 isn’t the only book to enjoy a boost in sales thanks to the NSA scandal. Other dystopian novels have seen similar, if not as striking, surges, including Orwell’s other classic, Animal Farm, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

So, on the down side, it turns out that the government is paying way more attention to your business than (almost) anybody thought. On the bright side, a whole new generation of readers are being introduced to some literary classics. So there’s that.

Today, they’ve done just that. AmazonFresh is now available in Los Angeles in select zip codes. AmazonFresh offers free grocery delivery (produce, meat, alcohol, etc.) to members. It first launched in Seattle way back in 2007.

Amazon is offering a free 90-day trial of AmazonFresh to Amazon Prime members. After that, your Prime membership will be “upgraded” to a Prime Fresh membership. That entails a $299 yearly fee. Amazon says that through AmazonFresh, members have access to more the 500,000 items and free same-day delivery on orders of $35 or more.

Reports indicate that this expansion into L.A. is just the beginning. After developing AmazonFresh in Seattle for the past 6 years, Amazon is ready to make a bigger push into more markets – San Francisco later this year and possibly 20 or so other urban areas in 2014.

NASA recently released a study that looked at understory fires burning in the Amazon rainforest between 1999 and 2010. Through satellite imagery, they found that 2.8 percent of the rainforest has been affected by these devastating undestory fires.

So, what makes these understory fires so bad? The understory of the rainforest is not easily visible from the air so satellite views used to be able to see only so much. These fires also burn incredibly slowly so it’s hard to track their progress and just how much they burn.

That being said, NASA says that the trees in the rainforest have not yet adapted to fire. That means the trees affected by fire can not shrug off the damage caused and end up dying. The researchers estimate that as many as 50 percent of all trees affected by understory fires end up dying.

Thankfully, deforestation and understory fires are not related whatsoever. NASA originally thought that might be the case, but they found that forests next to those that had been cleared had the lowest rates of fire. Both are still detrimental to the rainforest, but it would have been even more disastrous if deforestation and fires had been related.

The researchers believe they may be able to predict areas of the forest that are more likely to catch fire in the future. They will now focus their efforts on this to help prevent more destruction.

Amazon announced today that it’s opening an indie games storefront on its site. In Amazon’s own words, it’s all about increasing discoverability:

The Indie Games Store is a dedicated storefront designed to specifically help indie game developers with promoting their PC, Mac, and browser-based games while helping gamers discover a large and growing selection of innovative indie games.

You will realize this is only a good thing if you’ve ever browsed Amazon’s digital game catalog. Before, everything was lumped together into one storefront and some great indie games were pushed to the very back. Now these titles have their own storefront where consumers can more easily find interesting and unique titles.

As with most major product launches, Amazon will be offering a number of promotions to those who buy indie games from its new store:

Amazon is still trailing behind Steam when it comes to digital distribution, but it’s quickly becoming a major player in the space. Moves like this only further cement Amazon as one of the premier destinations for digital game downloads. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon released a desktop app to directly compete with Steam and Origin.

The Digital Reader reports that the Kindle DX is available once again for its usual price of $299. For that price, you get a 9.7-inch e-reader that displays text in large-format fonts for easy reading. In fact, some of our readers lamented its original passing saying that the device was better than others at displaying PDFs and manuals.

So, why is it back? That’s the funny thing – nobody knows. All Amazon is saying is that it’s “excited to offer customers this option.” Well, it’s obviously excited to make money, but why offer a device that it unceremoniously killed over six months ago? Was there unseen demand for the device in the time between its removal and its resurrection this week? It’s hard to say, and Amazon isn’t being exactly being helpful.

With all this in mind, it’s probably best that you pick one up now if you really need a 9.7-inch e-reader. You never know when Amazon will just outright kill it again without any warning. For all we know, Amazon could introduce a 10-inch Kindle Fire HD and kill off the DX once and for all. Granted, that wouldn’t be such a bad trade-off. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is already a pretty great tablet, and making it just a hair bigger sounds like natural progression to me.

Oh, one more thing – the return of the Kindle DX was made possible by the sacrifice of another. The Verge is reporting that the Kindle Keyboard was killed around the same time that the DX was brought back. It’s a good thing the Kindle DX has a keyboard, right?

In fact, the first expansion could be as early as this week. Reuters reports that AmazonFresh may be coming to Los Angeles this weeks and San Francisco later in 2013.

Currently, AmazonFresh is a Seattle-only service that provides grocery delivery (produce, meat, alcohol, etc.) to over 80 different zip codes in the area.

Here’s how Amazon describes their small AmazonFresh program:

“We are a home grocery delivery service offering a full selection of fresh groceries, including produce, dairy, meat and seafood – even alcohol. We also carry products from iconic local merchants and farmers. We provide fast, convenient delivery straight to your home in as little as four hours of placing your order and FREE delivery on qualifying orders. We also offer best-selling Amazon.com items to add right to your grocery order.”

According to Reuters’ anonymous sources, Amazon will use the two non-Seattle expansions as a gauge for a larger rollout next year. Apparently, Amazon is eyeing the launch of AmazonFresh in 20 other urban areas in 2014 – some even outside the U.S. The grocery business is a tricky one – but there’s money to be made and Amazon knows that. They’ve sure had plenty of time to test the program in Seattle – it first launched way back in 2007.

That’s the word from NPD, who just published their VideoWatch VOD report for Q1 2013.

According to NPD, the number of viewers using subscription services to stream television shows (think Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Instant Video) rose dramatically – 34% as compared to the figures from the same period in 2012.

Netflix still dominates the market with an 89% market share – but that’s actually down 4% from last year. That means that Hulu and Amazon Prime Instant Video are both gaining ground.

“There’s no doubt that Netflix is driving the growth in SVOD, particularly with increased attention to television programming,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “We are also seeing good gains in the streaming numbers from Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime, and while neither pose an immediate threat to Netflix it is interesting to see which services later adopters will try.”

The biggest gains go to Hulu, which grabbed 3% of Netflix’s streaming TV share (up to 10% from 7%). Amazon Prime Instant Video gained 1% (up to 2% from just 1%).

And it looks like people are choosing to subscribe to multiple services. A year ago 76% of viewers just used Netflix – nothing else. Now, that number has fallen to 67%. 10% said they stream using both Netflix and Amazon, while 8% said they stream using both Netflix and Hulu.

The Amazon/Viacom deal is being touted as a “multi-year, multi-national” licensing agreement and they say that it will bump up Amazon Prime’s video catalog by over 100 TV shows and over 1000 episodes.

The content comes from networks like Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, and Comedy Central – shows like Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, SpongeBob Squarepants, and more kids programming. On the adult side, Amazon Prime Instant Video members will see shows like Key & Peele, Workaholics, and Teen Mom 2 land on the service.

Many of these titles were just recently available on Netflix, but that deal expired last week. So now, Amazon has picked up the slack.

“Kids’ shows are one of the most watched TV genres on Prime Instant Video,” said Bill Carr, VP of Digital Video and Music for Amazon. “And this expanded deal will now bring customers the largest subscription selection of Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. TV shows online, anywhere. With programs like Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bubble Guppies and The Backyardigans there are hundreds of great shows for kids and parents to choose from. In addition, we are bringing customers popular shows from MTV and COMEDY CENTRAL like Key & Peele, Workaholics, Awkward and Teen Mom 2, with the promise of more shows from these networks in the future.”

Not only is Amazon continuing with their original programing initiative, greenlighting 5 new shows last week, but they also just inked an expanded deal with NBCUniversal to bring more shows from NBC, USA, and SyFy to Prime Instant Video.