Amazon "Plogs" -- What Do You Think?

Today on Amazon.com I noticed a new beta feature: a "Plog" (for product weblog), featuring a post by author Ben Hammersley, thanking me for purchasing his book "Content Syndication with RSS."

I think the idea of plogs may have great potential for relationship-building, if implemented carefully and with an eye toward timeliness and relevance. But frankly, this Amazon implementation feels off-base to me so far...

Yes, I'm rather dubious about the value of Amazon's current approach to plogs. However that may only be because it's new and Amazon need to get its approach nailed down better. Maybe later on I might like this better.

Also, Hammersley's post was rather generic and underwhelming. I'd hope professional authors (of all people) could blog more engagingly.

Finally I bought Hammersley's book way back in October 2003. I wasn't terribly impressed with it (mainly because it offered little info on feed content considerations and assumed a fair background of geeky knowledge), and haven't revisited it since that initial reading. So this posting didn't feel particularly timely or relevant to me.

On its plog info page, Amazon explains:

"Posts in your Plog come from many sources, including authors of books you have purchased on Amazon.com. See the Amazon Connect Help page for information on how to sign up to receive author posts. In the future, your Plog also will help you discover products that have just been released, track changes to your orders and much more."

And here, "Authors with at least one book for sale on Amazon.com are eligible to participate in Amazon Connect. To learn more about the program and to sign up, visit www.amazon.com/connect."

Well, that could be terrific or terrible, depending on the content quality and relevance.

For me, relevance could be an issue. Not just in terms of timeliness (or lack thereof, as the Hammersley post indicates), but in terms of scope.

Here's what I mean: I'm guessing that only authors who offer new books for sale on Amazon.com get to do Plog posts. However, the vast majority of books I purchase via Amazon (and I shop there frequently) are used -- that is, sold via Amazon Marketplace. Would I be seeing plog posts by the authors of those books, some of which have been available for years? I'd hope so, but I doubt it.

We'll see.

Have you seen your plog on Amazon? If so, what do you think -- both in terms of how on-target the content seemed for you personally, and what you think generally about this strategy? Please comment below.

Comments

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Amy

I noticed this as well, enterprise (or in this case, Author) generated content and consumer generated content continues to mash together into a unique hybrid of expert/amateur opinions and thoughts.

Good or bad? I don't know, but if a company or publisher wants to respond, they should consider participating...

[J Spadafora]

I noticed mine and I'm not impressed.

It is pulling content based on one book I bought, and I have no idea why they picked that one book (Danny Gregory's Everyday Matters) and why, if they are going to rerun Gregory's blog content, they are leaving out his sketches.

If Amazon was serving up content based on a mix of past purchases and wishlist content, I think that would be more likely to grab me.

Well, if it were new content, and not taking up the whole front page. Right now, the plog seems to be too much like a splog.

[Kami Huyse]

Actually, I was glad to see that Amazon made progress on their "blogs" since last month when I posted on this. At that time they didn't even have comments enabled. Now they do, making it a much more useful tool.

http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2006/01/amazon-is-hosting-author-blogs-problem.html#links

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Amy

I've not tried out this product 3 bubbles, but it's very conversational-ly'

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/02/10/preview-of-3bubbles/

you may be interested in it.