Amazon Widgets Released Today Give Bloggers, Online Social Networkers and Website Owners an Easy and Fun Way to Express Themselves with Amazon Content

Business Wire, Sept 17, 2007

New Widgets Include Slideshow, My Favorites, Wish List, Product Cloud and Amazon Unbox Video Previewer

SEATTLE -- Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today launched "Amazon Widgets," a series of small, visually dynamic and easily configurable widgets that feature products from Amazon on blogs, websites and social networking pages. In as little as one minute, users can populate a widget with their favorite Amazon products and their comments about those products, and select from a set of color and layout themes to match both their mood and website. With earth's biggest selection of products, including the music users are listening to, movies they're watching, clothes they're wearing, and even the food they are eating, Amazon Widgets provide users unlimited options for voicing their tastes. The simple-to-use web interface for building and implementing a widget is at http://widgets.amazon.com.

Amazon Widgets are free to use. Users have the option to make money with their Amazon Widgets by joining the Amazon Associates program and when a visitor to their site clicks through their Amazon Widget to the applicable Amazon website and makes a purchase, they may earn up to 10 percent in referral fees from Amazon. All Amazon Widgets, except the Amazon Unbox Video Previewer which is available only in the US, are available for each Amazon site that offers the Amazon Associates program, including Canada (Amazon.ca), France (Amazon.fr), Germany (Amazon.co.de), Japan (Japan.co.jp) and the United Kingdom (Amazon.co.uk).

"Bloggers and active online social networkers have asked us for a fun and interesting way to display Amazon products on their pages as a way to showcase their favorite things. With Amazon Widgets, they can now do this and make money at the same time," said Sean McMullan, Manager, Amazon Associates.

Amazon today launched seven new widgets in the Amazon Widgets Gallery, and there are more specialized widgets coming soon. Some of the widgets launched today include:

Slideshow: Pick favorite images from the Amazon catalog and present them as a stylish slideshow. Showcase favorite CD cover art, present recently read books, or even reveal favorite breakfast cereals. Slideshow also lets users caption the selected images. See an example of Slideshow at http://obscuresound.com/.> My Favorites: Express yourself by recommending and commenting on favorite products from Amazon. This widget lets everyone know how you feel and what you like by showing product images, information and your own comments. Lori is showcasing her favorites at http://www.austenquotes.com with her "Books by Jane," "Books about Jane," and "Austen Movies" widgets.

Wish List: Display an Amazon Wish List on a blog or profile page, and let friends, family, and others know what you want. See the Wish List widget at http://paporartist.typepad.com.

Product Cloud: Take tag clouds or word clusters one step further by showing Product Clouds. Product Clouds engage site visitors by displaying product titles that are relevant to the content of the page in a cloud or cluster with the most popular product bolded. Site visitors can click on the title to directly visit the product page on Amazon. See an example of Product Cloud on the Geeking with Greg blog at http://glinden.blogspot.com.

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer: Show movie studio and TV network previews for a wide range of new release and classic movies or television shows available from the Amazon Unbox video download service. Users can select by attributes, such as genre, for previews they want to show on their web sites. Check out the Amazon Unbox widget at http://www.clipblast.com and http://www.meevee.com.

"ClipBlast! is delighted to use the Amazon Unbox Video Previewer in the evolution of video delivery on ClipBlast!, the video search engine", said Gary Baker, CEO, ClipBlast!. "Amazon Unbox Video Previewer is an important part of the new wave of digital streaming, which is quickly turning the Internet into the largest and most efficient video distribution platform in history. We're especially pleased at the ease with which we were able to integrate and customize the Previewer widget at ClipBlast.com."

"The Amazon Unbox Video Previewer widget is an innovative way for our users to discover new content available on Amazon Unbox. If they like what they see in a preview, they can quickly and easily click on the link and be taken to Amazon Unbox to download it to their own library," said Michael Raneri, CEO of MeeVee.

Check http://widgets.amazon.com for more information on Amazon Widgets, and visit http://associates.amazon.com/join for more information on the Amazon Associates program.

About Amazon Associates

Launched in 1996, Amazon Associates is Amazon.com's affiliate marketing program that includes hundreds of thousands of websites. Associates link to Amazon products and services from their websites, which adds compelling content for their visitors to enjoy and creates an additional revenue stream for their business. This revenue comes in the form of a referral fee that Amazon pays the Associate when a visitor to the Associate's site clicks on an Amazon product or service and completes the purchase on the applicable Amazon website. Current participants in the Amazon Associates program include large, well-known sites, niche content sites and blogs, comparison shopping engines, search engine marketers, and everything in between. Amazon has Associates programs for Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr. For more information on the U.S. program, visit http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/join, or the Associates Blog at http://affiliate-blog.amazon.com.