Days Later, Still #amazonfail

[lilithsaintcrow]

This has got the be the most exquisitely agonizing wait for a company to JUST SAY SOMETHING, WILL YOU since, oh, Enron? (We’re still waiting on an apology from that one, too, right?) This is passing the realm of the ridiculous and bumbling into the sinister. I’m not saying we should know every little fiddle faddle in twenty press releases, far from. But how blind does a Web 2.0 company have to be to not see that an apology is in order and will take the wind out of much of the continuing anger and suspicion? This isn’t rocket science, it’s PR.

Anyway, since I have nothing really spectacularly new except links, I won’t bore you with much more nattering. I do have a pet theory, but I’m running it by a few people of good sense to see if it’s worth anything. I am also thinking very hard about the question of porn and the majority. But you knew that.

Links:

* John Scalzi weighs in a bit after reserving judgment. Cogent and calm.
* Michael Hartford’s recap. Though “recap” isn’t quite what I’d say, because I doubt this is quite “finished”.
* Salon’s broadsheet, with updates.
* Richard Nash, A Straight White Publisher On Glitches And Ham-Fisted Errors. Good points, and without a lot of hysterical rhetoric.
* Once again, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, because his post deserves rereading.
* Emma Ruby Sachs at Huffington Post weighs in, and makes good points about censorship of GLBT books.
* Neil Gaiman linked to this, Cheryl’s Mewsings, a where-are-we-now post.

I would like to see a little more discussion of “why have sales ranks at all if Amazon is going to game them so they’re meaningless”, and a little more discussion of how deranking could make Amazon money. I suspect we’ll begin to see more of that in a bit. At least, I’m hopeful. I’ll have more later today.

ETA: Two quick links: AmazonFail and the Cost of Freedom, pointing out why we shouldn’t “relax” just yet; and Publishingtalk.eu’s excellent AmazonFail-PRFail. In particular, this passage from the former struck a chord with me:

Do you want that much power in the hands of one company? Even those among you who believe in the benevolent dictator model must be worried about this. Think for a second about what Amazon did here. In the world of ecommerce, the search is king. Almost everybody who shops online visits a site to find a specific product. By intentionally obscuring and manipulating the search results of your site, you are making a clear statement: We don’t want you to read these books. I can tell you from experience that if something is difficult to find through a search, it will not sell. Not only was this a suspicious action on Amazon’s part, it had the potential to be very “successful” (ie, it would’ve greatly decreased the sales of those titles). (Vromans.net)

Exactly. This powerful weapon was created FOR A REASON. No company spends money on a tool that powerful that they don’t intend on using. A huge squawk over it being used improperly one time will not stop it from being used improperly in the future as soon as the hubbub dies down–but greater choice in Internet suppliers might.

1. Amazon Censors Search Rankings To “Protect” Us
2. This Is Not A Glitch
3. Still Not A Glitch, But A Policy
4. (Update) Idiosyncratic Code?
5. Why I’m Bothering With AmazonFail
6. (Update) Seattle PI releases Amazon statement
7. Glitch, Ranking, & Porn
8. Days Later, Still AmazonFail
9. Glitch, Monoculture, Profit (AmazonFail Recap)

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