why i like amazon.com even more
like a lot of my friends, i, too, have an amazon.com wish list. the world's largest bookstore lets me click and buy with abandon. it's a lifesaver at the holidays and when birthdays roll around and i'm desperate to find that perfect gift for the special people in my life. i love books and music as well other stuff you can find on there. it's not hard to see that i like amazon.com. but perhaps my fondness for amazon is about to turn into a love affair because damnit: amazon leaves me a very satisfied woman. it gives me what i want!
i've started to like this company even more in the last month and i'll tell you my little secret (or not-so-secret) why:
do any of you out there ever like to look online for new recipes? fear not! amazon.com has become a treasure trove for on-line recipe hunters, whether or not they intended for this to happenl. you see, recently, the company's website added in a feature whereby you can now "search inside the book" using keywords. so, say you're looking for an apple pie recipe. all you have to do is type in "apple pie" and bingo! you get apple pie recipes from cookbooks that will pop up on your screen.
i personally find this a wonderful thing. but it raised an interesting question: you have to wonder if amazon thought of the consequences of allowing prospective customers/buyers to search inside of books. for most books, it doesn't matter. you get a few pages of a novel to read as a sample. no big deal. but for a cookbook, often a full recipe only takes one or two pages. if they pop up, all you have to do is print the recipe and you never have to buy the entire cookbook. will it affect amazon's cookbook sales? if you think about it, there are some people who only buy a cookbook for one or two (or a handful at most) of its recipes. if you can get these without having to buy the book, then what's the incentive? also, what about copyright stuff? hmm....
just saying. i'm not complaining at all, really because why worry my little head about all the implications? sure, it may lessen the chances of me purchasing a cookbook from amazon. but it will most definitely keep me going back to their site when i'm hungry and thinking about putting my culinary skills to good use.
yeah, i think i like good-old amazon more than i used to. in fact, i love it.
