Amazon.com today reported strong fourth quarter profits that beat Wall Street analyst’s estimates.

The online retailer said its net income increased 71 percent to $384 million in the fourth quarter, or 85 cents per share, compared with $225 million, or 52 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Net sales increased 42 percent to $9.5 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $ 6.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Amazon announced that it is inviting software developers to build and upload "active content" that will be available in the Kindle Store. In other words, look for something like an app store for the Kindle in the future.

Amazon announced details of a new program in which it will provide a new 70% royalty option for the Kindle, meaning authors and publishers can earn more royalties from every Kindle book that is sold. Under this new option, authors would get 70% of the list price, net of delivery costs. The option will not replace the current option of the DTP standard.

Amazon.com has announced that for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books on Christmas Day.

In addition, Amazon said its Kindle reader has become the most gifted item in the company’s history. The Kindle Store boasts more than 390,000 electronic books.

Amazon.com said today it is offering free one day shipping for orders of its Kindle placed on December 23 and promises delivery in time for Christmas.

The company is also offering free two day shipping for Kindle orders placed today. Last week Amazon said its Kindle broke another record with its best sales day. The company did not provide any specific sales figures.

Amazon.com has announced that December has been the best month for sales of its Kindle electronic book reader.

The company did not provide any sales figures or comparisons for its Kindle, but did say it is the most wished for, and most gifted item across all of Amazon.

Amazon.com said today it would start offering electronic versions of books by business author Stephen Covey exclusively in its Kindle Store.

Electronic versions of Stephen Covey’s best-selling books, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Principle-Centered Leadership" are available in the Kindle Store for $7.99. The e-books are being published through RosettaBooks.

Amazon has released an iPhone app for the Kindle to over 60 countries. Now users in a total of 64 countries can read Kindle books on their iPhones and iPod Touch devices.

Amazon is making some enhancements to its Kindle electronic reader, aimed at improving the reading experience for people who are blind, visually impaired, or dyslexic.

"Kindle is for anyone who loves to read—in fact, we’ve heard from thousands of vision-impaired customers and customers with learning disabilities over the past two years who have been helped tremendously by Kindle," said Amazon Kindle Vice President Ian Freed, Vice President.

Amazon announced that its Kindle device, an electronic reader, has broken its record for sales in a single month, during November. This information does not even take into account Cyber Monday, which is today.

The company says that the Kindle is the most "wished" for, the most "gifted," and the number one best-selling product across all product categories on Amazon.com.

Amazon.com has introduced "Kindle for PC," a free software application that allows PC users to access Kindle content on their computers.

Users will be able to buy e-books from Amazon without having to own its Kindle e-reader. Previously users had to buy a Kindle or an iPhone or iPod touch to buy e-books from its Kindle store.

The new Kindle for PC download will be available from Amazon next month. Amazon introduced its Kindle for PC software at Windows 7 launch event today in New York City.

As students begin to reject the Amazon Kindle ebook reader, the idea of ebooks as text books for colleges should start taking center stage. What device or system is going to truly work for busy students who want to use ebooks, but are finding it hard to use them at all on any device?

E-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle have sparked interest among consumers but have not yet reached mainstream adoption, according to a new report from the NPD Group.

Some 37 percent of consumers expressed interest in purchasing an e-reader, but more than 40 percent said they were "somewhat uninterested" or "not interested at all." When asked why, nearly 70 percent said it’s because they prefer the feel of an actual book.

The Free Software Foundation has launched an online petition to convince Amazon.com to drop its use of digital rights management (DRM) technology on its Kindle.

The move comes after Amazon deleted customers copies of George Orwell’s "Animal Farm" and "1984" without notice. Amazon says the titles were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have the rights to them and it removed the copies at the request of the publisher from both its Kindle store and users personal electronic readers.

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has apologized for the way his company handled the deletion of two George Orwell titles from its customers Kindle readers.

Last week Amazon, without notice, deleted customers copies of Orwell’s "Animal Farm" and "1984" later saying the action was taken at the request of the publisher. After removing the titles from its catalogue, Amazon deleted the titles from all of its customers Kindle devices. Customers were refunded for their purchase of the titles.

Amazon.com has been hit with a $5 million class action suit over its popular Kindle 2 book reader.

Some Kindle owners who purchased the optional $30 protective cover are complaining it is causing cracks in the device, which eventually lead it to stop working. The cover fastens onto the body of the Kindle with a set of metal clips.

Amazon apparently has some big plans for their Kindle e-reader and it involves advertising. That’s right, advertising. After all, what would a good book be without advertising, right?

Update 2: The Kindle DX will ship on June 10th, a spokesperson for Amazon tells WebProNews. "The Kindle DX is currently available for pre-order and all orders are prioritized on a first come, first served
basis," they said.

Update: The Kindle DX is now available for pre-order at Amazon for $489.

Google has announced plans it will start selling eBooks by the end of the year.

The move will put Google in direct competition with Amazon.com and it is also part of its strategy to promote an open platform for reading and accessing books.

Unlike Amazon, Google will allow users to read its ebooks on any Web enabled device including a PC, mobile phone and an eBook reader.

"Eventually, we hope to extend this functionality to retailers who embed Google Previews on their website," the company said in a statement.

People who want to make their blogs more accessible through the Amazon Kindle – and get some money as a result – can consider themselves officially encouraged to do so.  Amazon’s started a Kindle Publishing for Blogs program that allows for self-publishing and then splits the revenue.

Amazon has introduced a new version of its Kindle Store that is optimized for the Safari Web browser on the iPhone.

In March, Amazon launched an application that makes ebooks sold on its site readable on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices.