Danny Whatmough.com

Oh dear Amazon.

If you were out of the country offline over the Easter weekend, you might’ve missed the latest Twitter-crazed furore focusing on a suspicious lack of Amazon ranking points for lesbian and gay literature on the site.

It didn’t take long for #amazonfail to be trending on Twitter. And, a few hours later the bloggers launched in, followed by the traditional media, followed by commentator after commentator after commentator. Social media ‘experts’, activists and the like were all there having their say.

In the end, it was all a bit of a huff and a puff about nothing. It was a technical hitch and everything is being sorted out. Phew. An Amazon spokesperson had a tail between legs moment:

“This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection,” wrote Drew Herdener, Amazon’s director of communications.

“Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.”

It is an incredible episode for the darling of the the 2.0 crowd. And there are a few interesting takeaways:

1. Amazon were woefully slow in responding
2. The web doesn’t sleep – ok, it was a Easter weekend, but bloggers et al don’t play by those rules
3. Bloggers etc. don’t check facts – 1+1 = 3 online and anything goes until the ‘media’ or the company involved wakes-up
4. Your digital channels have to be set up and ready to go BEFORE this happens
5. Monitoring tools must be in place and active and being monitored by someone at all times

Will Amazon survive? Of course. Will this have hit their credibility? Possibly. Will they have learnt some important lessons? Definitely.

[Few caveats: I've never tried an electronic book reader thingy, I've never seen a Kindle in real life]

Amazon has proudly announced Kindle 2.0 – the electronic book reader which allows you to read books without carrying them all around etc. etc.

But I just don’t really get the appeal. Surely it is just a matter of time until one of the big players puts the ability to read books like this onto an iPhone or equivalent device? Why would I want to pay $300+ to buy something like this this when it could be integrated?

Ok, ok, I hear your shouting – the iPhone is too small, not enough battery and doesn’t have the nicely designed screen that makes reading easy…

I say: all problems that can be overcome.

So come on Amazon, Apple, Nokia, Microsoft – let’s sort it out! There’s surely money to be made… (& I don’t want yet another device I have to carry around with me.