Why Amazon Should Blog
Dear Werner,
Enough with the mutual acrimony. We didn't like the way you asked your question and you didn't like the way we answered it. But these dueling blogs on both sides are avoiding the central question: Should Amazon blog? From where I sit I see a great number of ways that Amazon will benefit from blogging. Let me try to lay them out for you.
1. Closer with your customers.
According to what you said at our Fishbowl presentation, Amazon thinks it knows everything it needs to know about its customers. I see scattered evidence that this is not the case. There's the example, I published of my own experience, of having Amazon recommend books for nearly 10 years from categories that are not my reading tastes. Salted in our current blog-based debate are comments from customers trying to be heard. These comments would probably be a lot more polite and constructive if they were on an Amazon-based blog. People are much more polite when they think you are listening. A lot of people do not think Amazon is listening and a blog would change their perspective. You may argue that Amazon makes it easy to leave comments. But that's different andd less desirable than having a customer know that they are speaking to a real hum who actually cares about his or her satisfaction.
2. Amazon employee morale.
In a company that discourages its employees to blog about their work, the employees get the message that they are not trusted by their superiors. From what Robert and I heard from you in that fishbowl, this may actually be the case. You could change my perception by letting your people blog. Employee morale may not be an issue today although a handfull have shared with me their desire to blog and their desire to have Amazon culture become--well more decentralized. Amazon is unquestionably on top of the mountain. But over time, as you recruit new people, they are more likely to look at your culture as closed--and other cultures competing for the same talent as open. I think the best and the brightest will almost always opt for an open culture.
3. Humanizing Amazon.
Maybe I should not have made public how funny I thought Hugh's cartoon was. I do not perceive of Amazon as the new Borg of the Northwest. Over the past months, I have met many gracious, enthusiastic, dedicated people from Amazon. However, most of your customers do not have the benefits of my personal experience. Amazon would do well to use blogs to let its customers--and authors--see real people doing real jobs with passion and knowledge. This puts people on your side. I makes them your word-of-mouth engines. It makes them your champions.
4. Increased Sales
In our book, we discussed a Japanese online bookseller called BK1, who old us they had increased book sales by 20 % by encouraging employees to blog about books they did or did not like. They found a direct correlation between favorable blogs and immediate sales. I believe this is absolutely applicable to Amazon. It also lets you compete with the one compelling reason to shop at small, independent bookstores, where the selection is smaller and the prices are higher than at Amazon. What they have that you don't have are "book buddies" employee and owners who read books, who share their enthusiasm for books, who ask customers how they liked their books. In short they have passion and authority for books that Amazon does not yet display. A blog would cure that.
5. Staying Modern
Amazon is an unquestioned winner of the first great wave of online business. It got to this position by showing superior online technology and merchandising was more valuable than old world branding. Now that you are on top, there is a danger of becoming complacent. Now tomorrow morning, but may the next day or the day after that, people will become suspicious of companies that don't make employees accessible through blogs. You have forwarded the argument that blogging may be okay for some little unknown company, but because you are Amazon, you don't need this stuff. That is the attitude of incumbents whenever innovation disrupts their agenda. They dismiss the new stuff. You may be the most powerful incumbent in the world, but if you ignore innovation--particularly innovation that puts you closer to your customers, you will eventually be disrupted. If I were an entrepreneur today, looking for a market opportunity for a new startup, I would be exploring points of vulnerability in large incumbents. I would be looking for kings of the mountain who are s certain of themselves that they will ignore me for a prolonged period, until I can get my foot in the door. That's what Amazon did a decade ago. That's what Yahoo did a decade ago--opening the opportunity for a young agile company to use innovative technology to take over the Search category.
6. Wisdom of Crowds
If you blog, your customers and audience will make you wiser. We spoke to very diverse business people in writing Naked Conversations They had all sorts of ways their businesses operated, all sorts of cultures, models, etc. What they shared in common, almost unanimously was that they said they were surprised by how much they had learned by listening to comments. Not one of them took a contrary view.
7. The ROI Question
Werner, I suspect you already know that this is a Sphinxlike riddle. When something is new, and as dynamic as blogging, it is impossible to forecast the ROI. There will come a day for companies that blog when they look backward at historic data and can make honest assessments of increased revenue or other benefits. I think Microsoft and Sun for example, have been blogging long enough to say that perceptions of them have improved because of bogging. They could not have told you that when their toes were at the base of the mountain and they were just beginning their journeys.
I would add to this a second observation. Sometimes, the quest for ROI in all corners of the corporation has caused the problem with customer relations that most reasonable people agree exists. We wanted better ROI from customer support, so we lowered the quality for the support. Marketing was historically to touchy feely for financial reviews, so we started adding ROI requirements to each project, forgetting that the essence of marketing is relationships that improve the ROI of the sales department. Companies still know this. They realize the ROI of a press release, an employee health club, a three-day trek to a conference where an executive speaks for 45 minutes, a donation to Katrina survivors and so on. Those are soft-ROI items, but most companies see their values.
Werner, in a way you have been a great service to Robert and me. You took us by surprise and you knocked us off balance in our presentation. We didn't like the way you asked your questions and you didn't like the way we answered. We didn't like being set up to look foolish in front of your employees and cameras and you didn't like us saying we were disappointed by what happened at Amazon.
All three of us have egos. The core issue is important to all three. And we sincerely think the issue is a significant one for Amazon moving forward. You blog and a few other Amazon employees do as well. You have at least two departments who are playing with blogs one way or another.
Fellas ... ENOUGH!!!! Stop typing and start talking. Heck, hook-up on Skype. Yeah ... talk this through voice-to-voice, record the conversation, and upload it as a podcast for us all to hear. I know I would listen. And I think you three can get stop this blog bickering banter and get back to being productive. Dig?
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | March 31, 2006 at 12:55 PM
While certain folks were harping on ad nauseam about this stupid non-event, let's see what actually happened in the world today:
Earthquakes kill 50, injure 800
Rice Concedes 'Tactical Errors' in Iraq
UN Security Council calls on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment
At least 57 die as Bahrain cruise boat sinks
Iran Test-Fires Missile Able to Duck Radar
Explosion kills Palestinian militant amid spreading violence
4 Israelis killed by suicide bomber at entrance to West Bank
NY releases 9/11 emergency calls
13 Ugandan pupils die in school fire
Now can you explain to me why your self-opinionated A-list genuflection matters to anyone?
Posted by: Dominic Jones | March 31, 2006 at 05:07 PM
Dominic,
Thanks, I needed to catch up on the news. This is a blog about business and blogging. It is not about Iraq, Iran or earthquakes. There are lots of blogs that cover those topics. I suggest you read those and not waste your time on a subject that does not interest you.
Posted by: Shel Israel | March 31, 2006 at 05:24 PM
Shel, Please don't misunderstand, business and blogging interests me immensely, just not the BS we've seen today.
Just try to show how immaterial your efforts were today and get you to pause of a moment to reflect of other things in the world, which I'm glad to see you did.
I think I will start a new blog and do this routinely when things get whacky like they did today. What do you think?
Posted by: Dominic Jones | March 31, 2006 at 05:43 PM
Brilliant essay Shel,
Ach, how I wish Amazon did have a series of blogs as I would be in a position to March a few things off my door stopping chest ...
As I’m just over here frozen in terror. I’m in this terrifying limbo right now, wondering how am I going to survive the latest attack on Cold River. Let me tell you what sole survivors like me do not want. Bad reviews! I foresee a lot of vodka in my near future ;-) Every author becomes a mother when he begins to create a written work. For male writers, producing a piece of writing is the closest they ever come to being pregnant and giving birth to that adorable bouncing bundle of joy named Story.
Writing and selling for most of us is more than telling a little tale. It is not just a short hike up a lovely trail to a nice fat czech. It is instead, a long, lonely road of toil, and more toil. More often than not, the road is paved with rejection slips, and the fat czech is many, many miles away...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1554043115
Posted by: Jozef Imrich | March 31, 2006 at 05:48 PM
Jozef,
I feel your pain. You wrote a great book. I respect you immensely for that. But you just have me an idea for something else Amazon could do. I'll post about it shortly.
Posted by: Shel Israel | March 31, 2006 at 05:55 PM
Without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk the greater the faith.
—Sören Kierkegaard
Shel
I hope you ideas will continue to grow wiser and greater ... the part of including the excluded (bringing outsiders inside) ;-)
Like Dr. King I had a dream of my own, and I also know that nothing worth having comes without some kind of adversity and fight!
We hear a lot these days about publishing becoming more and more risk-averse, the bean-counters taking over, and so on .... This is of course a massive generalisation and there are some great things coming out both here and overseas on a regular basis - perhaps the larger problem is our inability to get genuine feedback as described by Monadick in his first comment at 'All Things Distributed' does make a lots of sense to me ...
'I think Amazon cares about cutomers and their feedback quite a bit more than other companies. Even so, there are times when I feel an issue doesn't get all the attention it deserves.
An influential blogger can help bring focus and attention to issues that may get lost in Amazon's customer service department. I have often wanted a forum on Amazon to voice my issues and feedback and emails have not been entirely satisfactory.
Just my two cents! Posted by: Monadict'
http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2006/03/naked_answers.html [ Naked Answers ]
CODA: My best friends likes to say that God told me to write Cold River. In fact, I think of Elie Wiesel's statement: ' ...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.' Indeed, the three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, I was wrong ...
Posted by: Jozef Imrich | March 31, 2006 at 06:26 PM
This does nothing for your credibility as an author. Most people have to find your book and read it. You and Robert did a personal presentation for them. Amazon has heard the word of truth. Your job is done. It's up to them to decide what to do with it. It's THEIR business. Not everybody in the world has to go to the church of blogging.
Posted by: Gary Wisniewski | April 01, 2006 at 12:58 AM
RE your "reasons"
"2. Amazon employee morale."
The Amazon internal blogs are extensive, and adequate. Most of it would be very boring to people who just want their stuff. A large number of employees also blog, just not about work, in part because of NDA issues, in part because blogging is not their job.
"4. Increased Sales"
Amazon employees are also Amazon customers. We can, and do, submit reviews and listmania lists, as well as feedback on site operations.
"5. Staying Modern"
Horse pucky. Blogging is over four years old now. The Amazon buyer reviews are as much of a blog as your usual teenybopper blather or self important pundit ramble, and a lot more useful. The listmania function, along with the ability to put Amazon Associates stuff in any old blog, is again more "on topic" for the site than random blogs would be.
"6. Wisdom of Crowds"
Have you read MySpace? That isn't "wisdom", it's just cruft. The best blogs I've seen aren't "A-list", or social networking sites. They are only updated when they have something real to say.
I'm sorry. Although I wasn't there at the talk, and thus can't really comment to it, I still think that you are peddling as much buzzword compliance as anything else.
Disclosure: I work for A9.com. I've never met Werner Vogels.
Posted by: ljl | April 03, 2006 at 12:57 PM
Do you guys really read a lot of blog commenters? How can you call what you see the wisdom of crowds. To find any wisdom you have to sift through the craziness of crowds, the craveness of crowds, and the crudeness of crowds. It's like panning for gold in an open sewer. Sure there's a diamond in the drek but ick.
An open mike for the ignorant and the insane as the best way to find out what customers are thinking? Nah... there are better ways.
Posted by: laurence haughton | April 03, 2006 at 01:25 PM
ljl,
I won't respond to this because you are anonymous. Tell me who you are and where you are coming from or I'll not post anything else from you.
Posted by: Shel Israel | April 03, 2006 at 05:29 PM
"I won't respond to this because you are anonymous. Tell me who you are and where you are coming from or I'll not post anything else from you."
Me, anonymous? What are you smoking?
Isn't my typepad link to my web page, which links to my blog, enough for you? How about I list my blog right here: http://blog.laubenheimer.net/
What is anonymous about me? The fact that I'm not one of your A-List pals? Or the fact that I only use my initials, because my name is too long?
I had to log in to typepad to post the last comment, and I have a typepad profile. I've had a movabletype powered blog for years. I deliberately made my post *not* anonymous. Furthermore, I specifically disclosed that I work for A9.com, which is an Amazon subsidiary.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I did everything but put my work phone number in the comment.
As far as where I'm coming from - all I see is a pile of marketspeak, from somebody acting like blogs are "new". They're not. See http://www.linuxchix.org/content/recommends/books/essblog-review - and notice who wrote the review. Yep, me. Four years ago.
ljl, ticked off now
Posted by: ljl | April 04, 2006 at 11:35 AM
You make some terrific arguments here, arguments that are logical and constructive in nature. I'd like to add that this change would reduce worker stress as well as increasing employee morale.
Posted by: panasianbiz | September 10, 2006 at 05:24 PM
In the past (not so recently past) I have done some business with "Amazon". (Isn't that a big scary lady)? In those days I had absolutly no trouble buying anything from these people. Today I have tried numerous times to purchace an article that is advertised at 166.00 + 20.00 shipping which is fine. When the item comes up for payment it is $30.00 more plus shipping, which I don't care about, This piece of offal will not allow me to proceed.(And by the way,my credit rating is prime + 0}. I personally would rather spend more money and have this item shipped in time for X-Mas than mess around with Amazon. Thank you for the shoulder should anybody care.
Posted by: John Sanden | November 29, 2006 at 01:36 AM
I would certanly receive and respect any and all comments on my perception of a new and rising (and sometimes failing) business. Speaking of course of electronic mercantile stores.
I loved the downfall of the e-jillionairs of the past decade. Everybody is just a little too smart for me.Or maybe, Just maybe, "_NOT_"!
I'm 60 and don't really have any place else to shop. Small town fever, doncha know?
Posted by: John Sanden | November 29, 2006 at 02:01 AM
Official Website of Shri Srinivasa Ragavaswamy charitable Trust in South India working towards constructing a temple for Sri Srinivasa Perumal (balaji) with Raja Gopuram which is named as Kovai Thiruppathy.
Posted by: Anand Kumar | January 01, 2007 at 11:27 PM
What Amazon needs to do is offer free EMAIL accounts, like Google (Gmail), MSN (Hotmail) and Yahoo. :)
Posted by: Aimee Surette | March 09, 2007 at 12:38 PM
What amazon needs is to get into 21st century with
customer service
polite represenatives
knowledgable reps
allow their 'account specialists' to talk with customers
They are, rude, substandard and aloof
Posted by: Chip | March 13, 2007 at 05:21 PM
Excellent site - do keep up the good work.
Posted by: Hillary | June 03, 2007 at 05:47 PM
Thanks for posting about Amazon. I do some development myself with their e-commerce api and even started messing around with probably the first ever Amazon Associates Video Podcast http://www.youtube.com/user/PuReWebDev thanks,
PuReWebDev
Posted by: PuReWebDev | April 16, 2008 at 03:48 PM
Purchasing in the U.S
Try purchasing from Amazon's US site from Europe. Amazon's scam is that they switch the total purhashing price to € making the purchase at least 40% more expensive.
Posted by: Gerry McNamara | May 23, 2008 at 07:52 AM
I think that these perks of blogging could expand to almost any company. I think companies are scared of it because they think the "time" will be to big of an investment. I know that is what I thought until I started reading a book (www.deliverandmeasure.com) that talks about customer feedback - and what a better way to get it then a blog.
Posted by: shell smith | July 15, 2008 at 12:32 PM
somebody PLEASE let me know if there is a blog for sellers on amazon that really need to VENT. i had a real bad experience with amazon as a seller and i need to know how to do something or say something about this problem, and i am sure i am not alone.
Posted by: eric strange | August 08, 2008 at 04:22 PM
somebody PLEASE let me know if there is a blog for sellers on amazon that really need to VENT. i had a real bad experience with amazon as a seller and i need to know how to do something or say something about this problem, and i am sure i am not alone.
Posted by: eric strange | August 08, 2008 at 04:23 PM
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