Amazon is making a move into the social networking arena with the purchase of Shelfari, a community-based application that lets people create virtual ˜bookshelves to share with others.
The move comes less than a month after Amazon’s acquisition of AbeBooks, a vendor of rare and used books from independent publishers. As part of that acquisition Amazon also got a stake in Shelfari’s competitor LibraryThing, which AbeBooks had previously purchased a 40% stake in.
Amazon.com customers will be able to buy wine through the e-tailer’s Web site as early as this month, a spokesman for the Napa Valley Vintners Association divulged on Wednesday.
Amazon has been working with the nonprofit group, which represents 315 vintners in the Napa Valley, to arrange workshops with wine producers that might be interested in selling wine through the e-tailer.
“It should be live in the next few weeks,” Hall said, adding that Amazon was “really looking to be the go-to Web site for wine sales.”
Amazon has dabbled in the wine business before, investing $30 million for a 45 percent share in Wineshopper.com in 1999, a start-up that was acquired by Wine.com in 2000 before going through a series of layoffs. Wine.com has a storefront on Amazon, through which it sells gourmet food baskets but not wine.
Since the Supreme Court ruled in May 2005 that states must grant the same shipping rights to out-of-state and in-state wineries, winery-to-consumer shipping has become legal in 35 states, according to wine advocacy group Free the Grapes. There are now more than 5,000 wineries in the United States, at least one in each state.
Microsoft has announced the launch of the Live Search Local Listings Center, a portal that will enable users to find businesses near them, or near to where they want to go. As of now, the Live Search Local Listings Center is only available to users in the U.S..
Live Search Local Listings allow business owners to improve or update their listings at anytime to suit their needs. An owner verification process helps protect business listings against unauthorized changes.
The first step to add a listing to Live Search Local is to verify your business already exists within the Live Search database. If the business is not found, you’ll be taken to a screen that informs you of just that and allows you to continue to add your business listing to Live Search. At this point, your business listing will need to be associated with a Windows Live ID. Windows Live ID is a free way to authenticate people across pretty much every Microsoft Live Property. The following screen has the most information required for updating, so be prepared to take some timee. You’ll have the opportunity to add the following information about your business listing.
1. Listing Owner Contact Information (First/Last Name, Phone, Email).
2. Basic Information about the business (Address information, Toll Free Phone Number, Fax, Web Site Address, Option for not showing address information).
3. Supplemental phone numbers (additional toll free numbers, customer service, etc.).
4. Supplemental web pages (catalogs, menus, store locator).
5. Supplemental email addresses.
6. Hours of Operation (including an open box for additional explanation).
7. Payment Methods Accepted.
8. Photos of Your Business.
9. Additional Information (Year Established, Company Tag Line, Business Description, Brands Carried, Specialties, Professional Affiliations, Languages Spoken, Parking Options).
10. Professional Contacts.
First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now Microsoft Photosynth, transforms regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time.
To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos — 20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object — with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles. Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com/. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service. In about the same amount of time it would take to upload the pictures to a photo-sharing site, you can enjoy your pictures in dramatic and detailed 3-D.
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