WebProNews

Yahoo Music Makes Peace with iTunes, Amazon, YouTube

Yahoo Music is doing its best "come one, come all" carnival barker imitation.  Starting tomorrow, existing Artist Pages will be customizable with modules from iTunes, Amazon, Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, and YouTube, and more exciting stuff is on the way, too. 

No More PPC for Amazon Associates

Amazon is ending the payment of referral fees to associates in North America using pay-per-click (PPC) to get traffic. This is effective beginning May 1st. The change is not temporary. Amazon will not reinstate payment of referral fees to paid search associates. They say the decision to make the change is based on their review of how they invest their advertising resources.

Amazon Introduces Elastic MapReduce

Amazon Web Services has introduced the public beta of Amazon Elastic MapReduce, a cloud computing service that allows businesses, researchers, data analysts and developers to process large amounts of data.

Amazon To Shutdown 3 Distribution Centers

Amazon.com is closing three of its fulfillment centers in Munster, Indiana, Red Rock, Nevada, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, the first time the online retailer has closed a warehouse since 2006. Amazon said the move is part of a reorganization of its distribution network so it can "better balance product mix and customer orders."

Fujitsu Stabs At Kindle Market

At first glance it looks like a Kindle killer. Fujitsu took the veil off of FLEPia today, an e-book reader that shows 260,000 colors in full sunlight, and that works as a digital picture frame.

Amazon Sued Over Its Kindle

Discovery Communications, the company behind the Discovery Channel, has sued Amazon.com for allegedly violating a patent on electronic book technology with the Kindle. Discovery filed the patent infringement suit against Amazon in U.S. District Court in Delaware alleging that the sale of both versions of the Kindle violates a patent Discovery received in 2007.

Skype Could Be For Sell, Would You Buy?

eBay has been busy announcing changes and fueling speculation around others. According to the WSJ the online marketplace is going back to its roots as an “internet flea market” , as well as moving away from the retail model that Amazon owns and concentrating more on PayPal.

Amazon Web Services Adds New Pricing Option

Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing service, has announced it has added a new pricing option for Amazon EC2 called Reserved Instances. Reserved Instances extends the current on-demand pay-as-you-go pricing by giving customers an option to make a one-time payment to reserve capacity and reduce hourly charges. After the one- time payment, the instance is reserved enabling customers to only pay for the compute capacity they use, and if they don't use an instance they will not pay usage charges on it. Reserved Instances are available in 1-year or 3-year terms.

Amazon Launches Used Video Game Trade-In Program

Amazon.com has announced it will allow customers to trade-in used videogames for credit on its site, a move that will challenge game retailer GameStop. The company has launched Amazon Video Games Trade-In in beta. "Our video game trade-in process is easy. Go to www.amazon.com/tradeingames and discover games that you want to trade among hundreds of titles," the Amazon Game Room's Blog states.

Amazon Releases Kindle For iPhone Application

Amazon has launched a free application for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows users to download any e-Book from Amazon's Kindle store on Apple's mobile devices.