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Bezos-Owned Washington Post Embeds Amazon Buy-It-Now Buttons Mid-sentence

Posted by Soulskill on from the wait-till-they-start-delivering-papers-with-drones dept.

McGruber writes: While reading a story in the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, I saw that the paper had begun embedding Amazon Buy-It-Now links in the middle of story sentences. For example, in this article, a sentence about the sales figures for differing covers of The Great Gatsby read: At Politics and Prose, the traditional [BUY IT NOW] version — featuring the iconic eyes floating on a blue background — sold better than the DiCaprio [BUY IT NOW] cover. This change follows the July news of much larger than expected losses at Amazon and a 10-percent decline in the Amazon's stock value. In related news, the Post reports that the literary executor of George Orwell's estate has accused Amazon.com of doublespeak after they cited one of Orwell's essays in their ebook pricing debate with Hachette and other publishers.

9 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. It's not going to work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All advertising eventually repels people. It's only a matter of time before someone seizes the opportunity and takes your customers away. Ads associate you with cheapness. There is no coming back from a reputation as an ad whore.

    On a side note: Be thankful for ad blockers. I hold quite a few sites in undeserved regard because I don't see the ads.

    1. Re:It's not going to work by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ad blockers repel content providers....

    2. Re:It's not going to work by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All advertising eventually repels people.

      Exactly. This is why, throughout history, companies that advertize have consistently failed, while companies that just sit back and wait for the world to beat a path to their door have prospered. Clearly, advertising doesn't work.

      Ads associate you with cheapness

      So true. This is why companies like Louis Vuitton and Gucci, by advertising heavily, devalue their products, and only make pennies on the dollar compared to unadvertised brands available from eBay and shipped from China.

    3. Re:It's not going to work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Snark that misses the point.

      He wasn't talking about companies that buy ads, he's talking about companies the sell ads c.f. "ad whore."

    4. Re:It's not going to work by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Spammy advertising doesn't work and repels customers. Spam email, annoying product placement, animated/interactive adverts and the like put people off eventually. That's why you don't get "1ouis Vvitt0n" emails, or at least not from Louis Vuitton.

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  2. Accuse me a being materialistic whore but... by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not having a serious problem with this.

    I hate today's commercials so much, I mute them if I can't fast forward them, and am almost forced to only watch DVR'ed content, and tend to avoid watching live TV now. I run adblock. When its a site I go to frequently, I whitelist it, and quickly block it again once I see an ad that does popups, or automatically plays audio/video, or otherwise detracts from my reading.

    I would go nuts if a "buy it now" button popped up while reading fiction, but this is a newspaper article. I don't find the button intrusive, because I'm not trying to follow artistic nuance in a newspaper article. It doesn't really take up the screen, and they're placed in front of products to sell, namely "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Great Gatsby".

    It seems to me no more intrusive than a banner ad, and I'm much more annoyed at large rectangular ads that break up article paragraphs. So what am I missing here?

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  3. Wow, seriously - that is annoying by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There were a LOT of those "buy it now" links scattered all through the article!

    If I were a Washington Post subscriber, I might very well cancel my subscription over something like that - it completely breaks up the flow of the article. That's highly annoying.

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    1. Re:Wow, seriously - that is annoying by Noah+Haders · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there's also something called "journalistic integrity" in which advertising content is separate from news content. The next step is for WaPo to shape its news coverage to maximize its affiliate volume. also change its name to huffpo.

  4. Re:Amazon Prime by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It doesn't matter if the Washington Post is personally owned or not - Bezos' personal fortune is dependent on both it and on Amazon.com, and he's the one calling the shots with both companies. So this attempt to use one of his companies to drive business to another of his companies shouldn't be surprising.

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