Amazon, major online retail giant, is making several notable changes to their website design as well as beginning development for their social games initiatives.
Preparation for Mobile Onset
The website design changes – which include an enlarged search bar and more clearly highlighted items on the home page – have been made in light of Amazon’s upcoming tablet release. The site is obviously being redesigned so it is easily viewable on a tablet device, and the items highlighted prove this. Ebooks, music downloads, digital gaming and applications now replace above-the-fold items of the past. Amazon has expanded their efforts to more than just Internet shopping, now focusing on applications for mobile devices powered by Android in addition to their edition of the tablet.
Let the Games Begin
As far as securing their piece in the Social Media world, Amazon has hired a new Director of Social Media to head up their Social Games Group. In a recent Forrester study, 84% of businesses did not have plans to use social gaming for marketing purposes, while as little as 2% were using the gaming platform at the time of survey. The platform is virtually unexplored, leaving ample room to creatively use it as a marketing vehicle (for both advertisers and developers!).
Consumer-Based Social Media
One more Amazon initiative that could be forming in the near future is a social platform on which consumers could compare, share, comment on and discuss products sold by Amazon. This platform would recreate the consumer aspect of Facebook, streamlining product information and making the purchase process easier. As Amazon solidifies plans for the prior points made, anything could be in the cards.