Amazon’s business model evolution?

Why do people say that Amazon is getting into Apple’s business now (tablets, hardware) but didn’t say that Apple was getting into Amazon’s business with the launch of the App Store and iTunes store (selling other people’s content)? Amazon is still in the same business as always: selling and delivering content. They just need to make sure that their customers can buy new forms of content and they are making that as painless as possible. I love what they’re doing.

Amazon is a beast.

Amazon is a beast.

“In 1991, Walmart reported revenue of ~$44B, an increase of 35% over the prior year. In 2011, we estimate Amazon.com will report revenue of $49B, an increase of 43% over the prior year. Amazon.com is the Walmart of our era but it’s better, in our view – Amazon.com is the combination of a technology logistics company, allowing it to participate in a transition of physical to digital retail supported by a store-less (in Seattle) business model that leads to higher long-term economic returns.”
Scott Devitt / Morgan Stanley Research: Amazon in 2011 is where Walmart was in 1991
“Amazon has officially denied that the recent outage of its EC2 and Elastic Block Storage cloud platforms was the result of an attack from Cyberdyne Systems’ Skynet sentient computer system, declaring humanity safe after all. ‘From the information I have and to answer your questions,’ a spokesperson explained, ‘Skynet did not have anything to do with the service event at this time.’”
Slashdot

Training Tea Party Activists In Guerilla Internet Tactics

“They were activists just like you. I truly believe that.”

“[Amazon] started selling diapers in the summer of 2006, just a year after Diapers.com debuted. When Quidsi launched Soap.com in July, adding an additional 25,000 products to their lineup, the site was strafed almost from the minute it went live by price bots dispatched by Amazon. Quidsi network operators watched in amazement as Amazon pinged their site to find out what they were charging for each of the 25,000 new items they initially offered, and then adjusted its prices accordingly. Bharara and Lore knew that would happen. ‘If we put something on sale, we usually see Amazon respond in a couple of hours,’ says Bharara.”

What Amazon Fears Most: Diapers

The Diapers.com story is one of my favorite startup stories.

“Forget about this. We can’t be thinking about how Barnes & Noble has so much more in the way of resources than we do…Yes, you should wake up every morning terrified with your sheets drenched in sweat, but not because you’re afraid of our competitors. Be afraid of our customers, because those are the folks who have the money. Our competitors are never going to send us money.”
Jeff Bezos in an all-hands meeting with Amazon’s 125 employees after at least one prominent tech pundit predicted Amazon would get wiped out when Barnes & Noble launched its website in 1997, quoted in How Amazon Innovates: Lessons in Strategy for Microsoft and Others. B&N had 30,000 employees and $3 billion in annual revenue compared to Amazon’s $60 million at the time.