November 15, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

When Amazon was considered to be the place of endless goods and libraries of books, no one thought they would find books that cater toward pedophiles.

On Thursday the e-commerce store was found to be selling “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct,” an e-book that offers advice to pedophiles afraid of becoming the center of retaliation, on its Kindle store. As soon as the word got around, Amazon’s inbox was instantly flooded with complaints and threats of boycott.

MSNBC’s Wilson Rothman is reporting that this is not Amazon’s first time in the hot seat of selling controversial material. Apparently they have a history of  selling “books and videos depicting pre-pubescent Eastern European and Asian girls, some of whom are nude” in the U.S. and Japan.

“Nudist videos from Eastern Europe appear on the U.S. Amazon retail site; meanwhile, books and videos that feature scantily clad pre-pubescent Eastern European and Asian girls, specifically stated by an independent website as being between the ages of 11 and 17, are listed on Amazon properties in Japan and elsewhere,” explains Rothman.

The availability of the book and similar material on Amazon has many people questioning the online store’s morals and procedures to vet books and videos before they wind up on the proverbial shelves.  Although, Amazon says they have bans on materials deemed offensive, they don’t elaborate on what they constitute to be offensive material.

In 2002 Amazon was threatened to be sued by the United States Justice Foundation for selling “Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers,” which is still available through the online store.  In 2009, Amazon stopped selling the video game “RapeLay,” in which the goal was to stalk and rape a mother and her daughters, after receiving less than positive reviews from various interest groups. Philip R. Greaves II, author of the “Pedophiles Guide,” has a number of other publications available through Amazon.

November 15, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

In early April, PC World brought to light the rumored Google Android Tablet, discussing the hearsay, expectations, and reality of Google stepping into the tablet market. Now, almost the end of the year, the rumors are heating up as Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang spoke out about just how powerful a Google Android Tablet could be.

Admittedly, Huang says that Google is a “little behind Apple” when it comes to the tablet market. That said, he has high expectations for Google. “Now it’s going to take something absolutely great to compete against the iPad and the iPhone, as we all know. Because both of those devices are quite amazing devices. And so it’s going to take something that is truly remarkable to compete against it. And I think Andy and his team, and all of our engineers here working with them, and all of our partners around the world working on it, are going to absolutely deliver,” he added.

Of course, there still are some updates needed for Android before Google will feel it’s ready for a tablet worthy of iPad competition. Google is planning an update set to launch soon, but critics feel that it’s likely Android won’t be ready until 3.0 or Honeycomb.

NVIDIA figures to be a major player in the tablet space with its Tegra 2 chipsets. The LG Tablet is supposed to utilize the Tegra 2 processor, as well as Android Honeycomb, making it the closest competitor to the iPad yet, but few feel it will make a large impact. No, the iPad has few competitors closing in, but if anyone could give Apple a run for their money, it’s Google.

November 11, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

Former President, George W. Bush left the office nearly two years ago with the lowest domestic and approval rating in the history of United States’ presidents.  Whether the name George W. Bush leaves a bad taste in your mouth or not, the former President has a lot to say and people are actually interested. Penning his own 512-paged book, Decision Points is a memoir that marks the end of his silence since leaving the office. The memoir gives readers Bush’s personal insight into what he was experiencing and the conditions he was under as he made some of the most crucial decisions in American history. Readers will find exclusive details that may or may not be a surprise, how Cheney was to be dropped off the 2004 Ticket, how Rumsfeld could not be fired in 2006 because Bush couldn’t find a proper replacement, confirming his authorization for the military use of waterboarding, and his response to Kanye West’s racist accusation against him. The memoir is the account of all his eight years in office.

Bush says his memoir is geared for an American audience. It’s safe to say, a majority of the American population is still demanding to know, basically, what was the former President thinking. What was he thinking when entering Americans into war, reacting to Hurricane Katrina, discovering the horrific conditions at Abu Ghraib Prison, and of course, among the long list of many other things, working through the fiscal and political policies affecting the economy today.

Already reaching Amazon’s Top Sellers List and even climbing Amazon U.K.’s list at #11, the book has only been out since November 9th and continues to gain large press coverage as Bush will be making his way through the U.S. media circuit starting this week. Major networks have battled to gain personal interviews with the former President but it looks like FOX, CNN, NBC, and CBS will get coverage. Matt Lauer, who kicked off the big media tour on Monday’s Today show is at the top of the list of big name interviewers from Oprah, Jay Leno, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. All the interviews have been tightly controlled (perhaps, to prevent another ‘shoegate’ incident) in order to maintain focus on his book, but those who watch, pro-Bush or not, will sit with a strange need to hear Bush. Those who do, will find themselves discussing what he says are the most interesting revelations during his Presidency as well as debate about how he answers the hard headed questions from his interviewers. It may be easy for some to dismiss Bush (and for others, really easy), some protesters have even gone as far as asking retailers to re-shelve the Bush memoir into the ‘criminal’ section; whereas, others receive the memoir with caution, the spectrum is wide as most are led by the curiosity to know how Bush retroactively looks at his Presidency, given the current state of the Country, what he would change, admitting his mistakes, and his biggest challenges and accomplishments during his two terms.

November 2, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

See a book you like online with your Barnes and Noble “Nook” e-reader, and you can buy it instantly. If your friend sees the same book, but doesn’t buy it, you can lend it to him or her for a period of fourteen days. There are some restrictions on that, however, such as the fact that when your friend has it, you can’t read it (which kind of makes sense, since that’s what happens when you lend a physical book). The other big “if” around lending on the Nook lies with the publisher. The publisher has veto power as to whether you can lend the book or not.

This one slim difference may have been the Nook’s one edge over the Amazon Kindle, but that is changing now, as Amazon is ready to pull the trigger on a new license that would allow users to share e-books just like the Nook.

This could be bad news for the Nook. The Kindle is already so popular that Amazon had to limit consumers to five per order – most of which probably end up on eBay as resales. Amazon is exploiting the Kindle to the best of its ability, giving it a ton of spotlight time and using it to drive sales.

The Kindle and the Nook probably have more in common than they realize though, as they could both be unseated by a successful e-periodicals service being launched on the iPad (and both look good wrapped in a fake-real-book exterior). As it is, Amazon is clamoring for the ability to allow subscription content to migrate from the Kindle to other platforms (PCs, etc.).

October 20, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

Paid gaming apps have not been a major reason why people have been flocking to Amazon.com to purchase a Kindle, as these types of apps only started to appear last month when EA debuted Scrabble, and went to the top of the Kindle bestseller list. Now two new paid gaming apps, released on October 14, are topping the Kindle bestseller list with EA Solitaire currently ranking at #1, and Triple Town from Spry Fox at #9. EA Solitaire is much more affordable than most ebooks for the Kindle, as consumers only have to pay $3.99 for the app that offers players 12 different modes of solitaire. Reviews on Amazon thus far are very positive for EA Solitaire, as Kindle owners are enjoying purchasing fun apps to complement their library of ebooks. Some Kindle users are upset that this does not work on the first generation model, but most of the new paid gaming apps are geared toward the newer Kindle models. While this is disappointing for consumers, it does help out Amazon, as more people will want to upgrade to the new Kindle models to ensure that they have the option to utilize all of the newest apps.

Triple Town is the first independently published game for the Amazon Kindle, and it is also getting great reviews, as it is currently averaging a 5 star review among owners. The new paid app is from Spry Fox, which is a match-three puzzle game that is easy to learn and fun to play. This marks the beginning of Amazon offering a wider variety of paid gaming apps for the Kindle, which will allow them to better compete with devices like the iPad or iPhone. The Triple Town game is not available on the first generation Kindle, so again these device owners are out of luck, unless they want to upgrade to the Kindle 2 or 3 model.

October 4, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

There are a variety of things which have to be done if a merchant wants to have a successful ecommerce store, and one of the most important pieces to the puzzle is ensuring that the site receives qualified visitors who are interested in making a purchase. However generating traffic for your ecommerce site is only one piece of a successful strategy, as you need to make sure you grab the attention of your visitors and get them excited to make a purchase. Many ecommerce sites focus on having an extensive selection of products available, which sounds great in theory, but it can be time consuming to maintain. Not only do merchants have to focus on maintaining thousands of products, but they also have to monitor them in reports to see if these products are even worth having on their ecommerce site. Therefore it is vital that ecommerce merchants adjust their strategies to ensure that they dedicate adequate time to concentrate a portion of their efforts on their best selling products.

It may seem like common sense for an ecommerce merchant to focus on their best sellers, as these are typically the products which are helping them generate revenue and pay the bills. Although ecommerce merchants often focus on the bigger picture, which can mean that they forget to attack the monetization of their site. Many of the leading hosted shopping carts have robust reporting which will allow a merchant to dig deep into which of their products are really driving profits. When merchants spend the time to analyze the right reports, they will often find that they do not do a great job of maximizing sales for their best selling products. It does not make sense to spend a lot of time driving people to a product on your site which may only be purchased a couple times per year.

One great example of an ecommerce company who works hard to push their bestsellers is Internet retailing giant Amazon.com. Over the past year the Amazon Kindle has become the premier product for the company, and sales of the ereader and ebooks have been instrumental in generating revenue. This is why Amazon has positioned the Kindle on the center of their homepage for many weeks, as they want to capitalize on their success and drive even more people to the Kindle product pages to get excited about this ereader.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, it is key for ecommerce merchants to spend some time analyzing reports to determine which products are driving the majority of their revenue. Then they should create a strategy around this data, so that these bestselling products are prominently displayed on the site. While the homepage is an obvious choice to highlight the bestselling products, ecommerce merchants can also promote them via cross-sells and upsells to try and capture more sales.

September 28, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

Since Amazon debuted the Kindle they have focused on dominating the ereader and ebook scene, but there have slowly been some fun free apps released that allow you to do more than read books with your ereader. Now the Amazon Kindle has released the first paid app with the addition of Scrabble for $4.99, which was an app created by Electronic Arts (EA). Scrabble has been a very popular paid app on the Apple iPhone and iPad, so it makes sense that Amazon partnered with EA to bring Scrabble to Kindle owners. The new Scrabble app is only compatible with the second and third generations of the Kindle, and DX version. So those Kindle owners who purchased one of the original models are left out on the Scrabble app, unless they decide to upgrade it to one of the newer models.

Kindle ereader owners are already known to be avid readers, as that is why they wanted to own and enjoy an ereader in the first place. Now the option of adding Scrabble to the Kindle ereader makes the device an even more attractive present for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Reviews are very positive of the Scrabble app thus far, and it is so popular that it already hit the #1 spot on the paid app bestseller list for the Amazon Kindle store. It is priced at $4.99, and includes the ability to Pass N’ Play with a friend or to challenge the Kindle computer. Scrabble enthusiasts should be pleased with this digital version of the game, as the two letter list is up-to-date, and the Kindle controller makes it easy to play the game on the device. With Staples and Best Buy selling the Kindle ereader in their stores, this upcoming holiday shopping season should lead to strong sales for the device.