By Mark from St Paul

July 1, 2010 3:53 PM | Link to this

Wow. Giving me credit for introducing him to Clay Shirky may be the nicest thing Vick’s ever said about me! The “outage” lasted 3 hrs. btw, and PC World estimated that Amazon lost $9.2 million in business (but I gotta think that’s inflated because how many of those folks went elsewhere instead of just waiting for Amazon to get straightened out?).

By Insider

June 30, 2010 10:06 AM | Link to this

I have a collection of manual typewriters myself. Love ‘em. I read somewhere that Tom Hanks collects them, too. Guess I’m not too strange.

By Nick

June 30, 2010 10:04 AM | Link to this

I doubt they lost much at all, really. If I want something from Amazon, I am probably not in the greatest hurry for it. Of course, I live in Piqua, so if I want a new CD, my option is FYE at the mall, WM is NEVER an option for music. Movies I can get from WM or FYE, but Amazon is often cheaper, but if I am ordering from Amazon for that, it is because I am patient. Now, books…. my only option to go get a book I want is to either go with Amazon or drive to Troy to their bookstore, which tends to have poor selection towards what I want. I ordered the most recent Robert Jordan book from Doubleday book club because Amazon was having issues with that book and I needed to add to my order count before next year. The book, even though it did hit the NY Times list, was not at Walmart or Kroger. Really, I just placed an order with them, and it is working, I have to hope we haven’t hit a level of entitlement that we think we should be expecting to get books or movies immediately and become too annoyed when the online option has a glitch. Where I live, I don’t have the option to just run to BN or Borders, I have to be patient to begin with. I know major websites will be up again soon, else they wouldn’t be major websites.

By vick

June 30, 2010 9:51 AM | Link to this

Thanks, Max. I’m familiar with Shirky. I’m actually halfway through “Cognitive Surplus” as we speak. Frequent commenter “Mark from St. Paul” brought Shirky to my attention a while back.

By Max

June 30, 2010 9:33 AM | Link to this

Errata: Clay “SHIRKY,” not Shiky….

By Max

June 30, 2010 9:31 AM | Link to this

Errata: Clay SHIRKY, not Shiky…

By Max

June 30, 2010 9:30 AM | Link to this

Well, Vick, that’s why I still have and regularly maintain a manual typewriter….when a technology fails - all technologies do at some level - there’s usually a displaced alternative still alive and well to take up the slack. By the way, I just deleted Kindle from my system…..the eye strain from the screen is unacceptable and difficult, regardless of display settings, to use outdoors in sade or sun. ‘Back to real page turning. On a semi-related topic I recommend Clay Shiky’s “Here Comes Everybody:…” and “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age”….Both work together in sort of a post-McLuhan sort of way.

By vick

June 29, 2010 10:37 PM | Link to this

Amazon.com is an amazing website. That is why this brief glitch was so shocking. It rarely happens that Amazon’s site gets that messed up. The worst snafu I have ever seen there.

By PK

June 29, 2010 10:20 PM | Link to this

Kindle operation is wonky too. I tried to view more info about a title and ended up purchasing it instead. I didn’t really want it, but it wouldn’t be so bad if it had actually appeared on my Kindle! It isn’t even there. :( Have e-mailed support and hope they will credit me soon. Always had good experiences with Amazon in the past.

By Dave

June 29, 2010 10:01 PM | Link to this

That explains things a bit. I couldn’t get the search engine to work, so I tried the “help” link and it didn’t work either.

By vick

June 29, 2010 9:12 PM | Link to this

It took a couple of hours but it seems that the Amazon.com website is now almost back to normal. One can only imagine how much revenue was lost during that time…

By lmj

June 29, 2010 7:51 PM | Link to this

I got there on the first try, but once I selected a book title, things became strange - and I subsequently got an error message. Technology! You can’t live without it, you can’t live with it!

By Insider

June 29, 2010 7:23 PM | Link to this

Yes, I bet so. It is totally strange. It did pop up a title if I typed it in, but it’s all messed up. First time I’ve encountered that.

By vick

June 29, 2010 6:55 PM | Link to this

Here’s the message I just got on Amazon’s site: “We are experiencing an issue that is impacting customers’ ability to view items and place orders on the Amazon website.” I’ll bet they are getting a wee bit anxious over at Amazon….