Amazon Goes Wiki

StWaldo writes "Amazon.com has added a 'ProductWiki' to some of their item pages. Wikified items seem to be limited to certain categories, DVDs being one un-wikied realm. Adding Wikiness to the site is just the latest in new participatory activities Amazon has adopted, along with tags and customer discussions." From the article: "So Amazon's gradually allowing you, along with your Wish List, your purchases, your clickstream, and, if you sell anything on Amazon, how good your reputation is--to build up a pretty detailed database of what you like (or don't) and what's important to you. I don't know what Amazon will do with this--fortunately, it seems to have a pretty light touch with how it uses what it knows about you--or what it will allow us to do with all this data. But as it grows, it could become a pretty powerful profile."

Comments

What will they do with all of that data?

[Graham1982]

Somewhere, somehow, there is a hurricane of advertising just waiting to annoy the Hell out of you. They will be marketing things like Star Wars collectables and case mods among other geeky things that you bought or searched for on Amazon. You will not be able to run, you will not be able to hide, Jamster will want to give you the latest Chewbacca ringtone.

Not the first time for Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not the first time Amazon has experimented with the wiki system. In 2003 they were working on a system called "Review Start". Users were allowed to submit their own review and make additions and edits to the product descriptions. The system was scrapped because Jeff Bezos thought it would hurt search indexing and ultimately Amazon sales. It will be interesting to see how the wiki model works for them.