Amazon repurposing Wikipedia as a sales tool Options Rating

[thekohser]

Interesting article on CNET:

Amazon adds Wikipedia to book-shopping pages
by Caroline McCarthy

[A User]

So will the sale of books and CDs from such links go back to the creators of the wikipedia article? I don't think so. Another reason not to contribute to wikipedia - you're treated nothing more than slave labour for a multi-national corporation juggernaut Amazon.com Inc.

[powercorrupts]

Interesting article on CNET:

Amazon adds Wikipedia to book-shopping pages
by Caroline McCarthy

Of course, the article's title should really be, "Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia 'mirror' adds content-relevant Amazon adverts to its encyclopedia pages".

Forget Veropedia, the future is here, and with Wikipedia's blessing. Queue right-wing book choices on rights-challenged pages – coming soon to that currently-blank column on the left.

Forget affiliate click-through's, why not hire out your infrastructure along with the free-liscenced scatological wiki text? Another step for the Wikimedia Foundation towards finally becoming a monster that can feed itself - instead of relying on charitable meat thrown by others. What a strain off their servers too.

God help us all.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Thu 2nd December 2010, 5:19pm

[thekohser]

On the Amazon page about Wikipedia Review, I note that Zittrain's book is now buyable in reference #4. But more importantly, I can see now in the "Wikipedia" box at the bottom, there are now four "Books" that you can buy quickly at Amazon.

All the more reason now for authors to get "their" book in place in various "official looking" boxes and tables on Wikipedia -- more sales!

[powercorrupts]

On the Amazon page about Wikipedia Review, I note that Zittrain's book is now buyable in reference #4. But more importantly, I can see now in the "Wikipedia" box at the bottom, there are now four "Books" that you can buy quickly at Amazon.

All the more reason now for authors to get "their" book in place in various "official looking" boxes and tables on Wikipedia -- more sales!

JESUS H CHRIST - the ISBNumber in the citation leads straight to the Amazon purchase page!

Wikipedia (its notorious 'convenience value' aside) has been broadly seen as such a poor-quality encyclopedia, that the bottom-page 'References' and 'Further Reading' lists have never (yet) been a serious focus for Competitive edit wars.

The prospect of highly profitable Amazon sales will change that overnight.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Thu 2nd December 2010, 7:08pm

[thekohser]

On the Amazon page about Wikipedia Review, I note that Zittrain's book is now buyable in reference #4. But more importantly, I can see now in the "Wikipedia" box at the bottom, there are now four "Books" that you can buy quickly at Amazon.

All the more reason now for authors to get "their" book in place in various "official looking" boxes and tables on Wikipedia -- more sales!

JESUS H CHRIST - the ISBNumber in the citation leads straight to the Amazon purchase page!

And why shouldn't it? The ISBNumber is being served up to you from an Amazon server. You do realize that you're not looking at Wikipedia when you peer at Amazon's copy of Wikipedia, right?

[powercorrupts]

On the Amazon page about Wikipedia Review, I note that Zittrain's book is now buyable in reference #4. But more importantly, I can see now in the "Wikipedia" box at the bottom, there are now four "Books" that you can buy quickly at Amazon.

All the more reason now for authors to get "their" book in place in various "official looking" boxes and tables on Wikipedia -- more sales!

JESUS H CHRIST - the ISBNumber in the citation leads straight to the Amazon purchase page!

And why shouldn't it? The ISBNumber is being served up to you from an Amazon server. You do realize that you're not looking at Wikipedia when you peer at Amazon's copy of Wikipedia, right?

Of course - but I'm used to seeing ISBN's on Wikipedia too - and there's the rub. And I hadn't noticed the links first time I looked. The site is as much a WikiMedia mirror as an Amazon grab as far as I'm concerned, as I've said above.

[thekohser]

Of course - but I'm used to seeing ISBN's on Wikipedia too - and there's the rub. And I hadn't noticed the links first time I looked. The site is as much a WikiMedia mirror as an Amazon grab as far as I'm concerned, as I've said above.

I don't understand why there's any "rub" here.

If you click on the ISBN's in Wikipedia, you're just one more click away from Amazon, the only bookseller that Wikipedians thought to include in the "Online text" section of the Book Sources tool.

Why do you think Amazon was granted that exclusive privilege? Wouldn't have anything to do with $10 million of venture capital funding that's been keeping Jimbo's table served with pizza for the past 4 years, do you think?

If you want to dig deeper, it appears that the first guy who wanted to tell the world about Wikipedia's ISBN detection system was one Martin Harper, who claims to have awarded the first barnstar and to have introduced 3RR.

+++++++++

Follow up: One thing is for sure, some fairly pointed questions are being asked on the world's #1 question and answer site pertaining to Wikipedia!

This post has been edited by thekohser: Thu 2nd December 2010, 8:37pm

[powercorrupts]

Of course - but I'm used to seeing ISBN's on Wikipedia too - and there's the rub. And I hadn't noticed the links first time I looked. The site is as much a WikiMedia mirror as an Amazon grab as far as I'm concerned, as I've said above.

I don't understand why there's any "rub" here.

If you click on the ISBN's in Wikipedia, you're just one more click away from Amazon, the only bookseller that Wikipedians thought to include in the "Online text" section of the Book Sources tool.

Why do you think Amazon was granted that exclusive privilege? Wouldn't have anything to do with $10 million of venture capital funding that's been keeping Jimbo's table served with pizza for the past 4 years, do you think?

If you want to dig deeper, it appears that the first guy who wanted to tell the world about Wikipedia's ISBN detection system was one Martin Harper, who claims to have awarded the first barnstar and to have introduced 3RR.

+++++++++

Follow up: One thing is for sure, some fairly pointed questions are being asked on the world's #1 question and answer site pertaining to Wikipedia!

You do forget sometimes that you are the semi-professional Wikipedia commentator (queue stabs at examiner.com I suppose), and the rest of us are various colours of Joe.

That Book Sources page is a neat trick ("For verifying citations in Wikipedia articles, and finding more info" indeed - well I suppose we all do use Amazon for research), but Whenever Wikipedia and Amazon first got into bed together, this is something else.

People do use Amazon for various forms of info-hunting all the time, and this new move is basically the Wikimedia Foundation mirroring Wikipedia onto Amazon webspace. Amazon gets ISBN links and side-bar advertising, while the WMF gets shared resources and no-doubt more venture capital. If the WMF have any business acumen at all, they would make sure that the money they get in return is in some manner secured by the ad-clicks or sales.

As I always say, the WMF's primary goal in life is to be financially self-supporting.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Thu 2nd December 2010, 9:11pm

[powercorrupts]

Amazon.com shopping-enabled Wikipedia page.

Of course they lose all the Good Article, Featured Article logos. And they have nothing to say when the article is edit-protected too (which is often on a particular 'POV' of course). Type in an article which has templated disclaimers into the browser's URL box, and it look like it jumps you straight to the main Wikipedia site.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Thu 2nd December 2010, 9:33pm

[thekohser]

...this new move is basically the Wikimedia Foundation mirroring Wikipedia onto Amazon webspace. Amazon gets ISBN links and side-bar advertising, while the WMF gets shared resources and no-doubt more venture capital.

Do you really believe that the WMF is proactively doing anything?

It's my understanding that Amazon has simply copied all of Wikipedia (no history, just "current" page view) to its own server, haven't they?

It would appear that the copy took place sometime before November 12, since Amazon says "e.g." about The X-Files, while Wikipedia says "such as".

[powercorrupts]

...this new move is basically the Wikimedia Foundation mirroring Wikipedia onto Amazon webspace. Amazon gets ISBN links and side-bar advertising, while the WMF gets shared resources and no-doubt more venture capital.

Do you really believe that the WMF is proactively doing anything?

It's my understanding that Amazon has simply copied all of Wikipedia (no history, just "current" page view) to its own server, haven't they?

It would appear that the copy took place sometime before November 12, since Amazon says "e.g." about The X-Files, while Wikipedia says "such as".

I can't imagine them not doing this together, can you? I realise that the WMF doesn't quite have the power and general 'say' in the world as they clearly desire, but I just can't image them doing this without it being an arranged partnership. And even less so now I know the financial interest Amazon has had in Wikipedia. Amazon is a huge outfit - much larger than the WMF, but I can't imagine either of them wanting to risk opposing each other.

The only way to find out is to pose the question to them, or Jimbo directly perhaps.

Anyone fancy putting this to Him on this talk page? All the work you are doing now Wikipedians, will be periodically updated to a mighty Amazon mirror designed with the sole purpose (for Amazon at least) of selling their merchandise, and presenting the 'Wikipedia' brand as if it's a mutual deal.

It's been done before in various semi-operable and dodgy-looking 'clone' sites - but this is something else, and when these articles are actually included in Amazon product search results, many of these articles could well be seen more times via Amazon than through Google, or Wikipedia's own on-wiki Search.

Is this what you want?

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Thu 2nd December 2010, 11:29pm

[GlassBeadGame]

...this new move is basically the Wikimedia Foundation mirroring Wikipedia onto Amazon webspace. Amazon gets ISBN links and side-bar advertising, while the WMF gets shared resources and no-doubt more venture capital.

Do you really believe that the WMF is proactively doing anything?

It's my understanding that Amazon has simply copied all of Wikipedia (no history, just "current" page view) to its own server, haven't they?

It would appear that the copy took place sometime before November 12, since Amazon says "e.g." about The X-Files, while Wikipedia says "such as".

I can't imagine them not doing this together, can you? I realise that the WMF doesn't quite have the power and general 'say' in the world as they clearly desire, but I just can't image them doing this without it being an arranged partnership. And even less so now I know the financial interest Amazon has had in Wikipedia. Amazon is a huge outfit - much larger than the WMF, but I can't imagine either of them wanting to risk opposing each other.

The only way to find out is to pose the question to them, or Jimbo directly perhaps.

Anyone fancy putting this to Him on this talk page? All the work you are doing now Wikipedians, will be periodically updated to a mighty Amazon mirror designed with the sole purpose (for Amazon at least) of selling their merchandise, and presenting the 'Wikipedia' brand as if it's a mutual deal.

It's been done before in various semi-operable and dodgy-looking 'clone' sites - but this is something else, and when these articles are actually included in Amazon product search results, many of these articles could well be seen more times via Amazon than through Google, or Wikipedia's own on-wiki Search.

Is this what you want?

Mr.Wales or even WMF can't negotiate the away the contents of WP because they don't own it. It is more likely that someone at Amazon simply had the sense to see the that free licenses permit anyone with the infrastructure and and audience (like say Amazon) to appropriate the content for their own purpose. In light of this a little financial support was hardly an act of charity even if it was tax advantaged. This is the very nature of PeculiarInstitution 2.0 which strips away the fruits of peoples labor without compensation.

I think something can be learned from the wage structure that persists to this day for social workers and nurses who suffer low salaries in comparison otherwise comparable occupations without a tradition of volunteerism. This is not good news for the future of professions with active "Free Kulture" wings.

[taiwopanfob]

Mr.Wales or even WMF can't negotiate the away the contents of WP because they don't own it.

Maybe they can do what they did in the past: unilaterally re-write the license, whether the authors like it not or not.

I'd recommend an extra clause saying something like "Notwithstanding all of the CC terms, above, all Wikipedia content can only be hosted on another wiki." This would significantly raise the cost of hosting the material, not only in terms of hardware and software, but I can't see any high-profile for-profit like Amazon allowing random people to copy-edit what amounts to their ads.

Fantasies, of course. If the past is a good predictor, the WMF doesn't give a shit. Expect a one word press release: "Suckazzzz!"

[CharlotteWebb]

Amazon.com shopping-enabled Wikipedia page.

I think adopting the "vector" skin will hurt sales, if anything.

[Somey]

I think adopting the "vector" skin will hurt sales, if anything.

Well, a good salesman knows that you never want to give the potential buyer too many options. They might start thinking about what they're buying...

Anyway, this might be stating the obvious, but this is not a "live scrape" - like Greg says above, "you're not looking at Wikipedia when you peer at Amazon's copy of Wikipedia." Amazon is storing this material on their own servers, including the images (though I note that if you click on an image, you're redirected back to the WP page for that image, probably for copyright-related reasons). It looks like the lag-time between scrapes is at least a week or so, for the pages I checked... They don't appear to be scraping selectively, either, not that I would expect them to put that much effort into it.

My big concern would be over whether or not Amazon will track your clicks within the scraped pages while you're logged into Amazon - I'd assume so, knowing them, and that means if you're browsing WP on their servers they're going to assume any page you go to represents a potential "recommended for you" item in their ever-growing customer database. They don't seem to be doing it yet though, at least not openly (IOW, if I go into my own "Recommended for You" and "Recently Viewed" pages, I don't see the WP scrapes there). Just give 'em time, though.

[powercorrupts]

Mr.Wales or even WMF can't negotiate the away the contents of WP because they don't own it.

That is so simplistic - of course they can, and it's not all freely licensed either.

When a favourable situation is in place, Wikimedia can negotiate over what they want to see going in ot the encyclopedia, and what they are happy going out - as I suggest they are clearly doing here. As we know, a significant amount of the encyclopedic content itself is effectively 'edited' by them, and we don't know yet how often Amazon in intending to copy the pages do we? With Wikipedia being the error-prone mess it is, I think it is fair to presume that Amazon is intending to refresh it all pretty often.

So what difference is an updated mirror to the real thing?

This is very similar to the ill-fated Veropedia situation, but instead of just bringing in Amazon for the affiliated sales to pay for the servers - this mirror will be part of the Amazon empire itself. This move, and new Kindle (and the fact that they even sell food like Marmite now) makes Amazon a truly enormous company. The deal will be mutually beneficial to Wikipedia too.

These are big businesses - is Amazon really going to do this without Wikipedia’s support and backing? I honestly don't think that they technically can. Isn't it pretty-much only the text that has the free licence, not the actual technical workings of Wikipedia? Amazon are surely copying all the clever stuff and the formatting etc, on a regular basis, per a deal with WMF.

I'm not going to keep repeating my arguments anyway, especially for someone who treats the forum and his elevated position within it like his own Facebook page GBG, messing with other people's content at leisure.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Fri 3rd December 2010, 12:04pm

[Jon Awbrey]

I'm not going to keep repeating my arguments anyway …

promises, promises …

Jon

[thekohser]

This move, and new Kindle (and the fact that they even sell food like Marmite now) makes Amazon a truly enormous company.

Why would they want to eat these little guys?!

The deal will be mutually beneficial to Wikipedia too.

These are big businesses - is Amazon really going to do this without Wikipedia’s support and backing? I honestly don't think that they technically can. Isn't it pretty-much only the text that has the free licence, not the actual technical workings of Wikipedia? Amazon are surely copying all the clever stuff and the formatting etc, on a regular basis, per a deal with WMF.

PC, how old did you say you were?

I'm starting to think you're not all there, in the head. You're a worst conspiracy theorist than I am, and that's saying something.

[Kelly Martin]

I can't imagine them not doing this together, can you?

Unless they have one of of the WMF's "live feed" agreements (in which WMF sends you a continuous stream of notices that "this page has been updated" so you can refresh your mirror, something which, as far as I know, is currently made available only to certain search engines companies), I doubt that the WMF has much to do with it. Wikipedia's licensing explicitly allows this sort of thing, and there are literally thousands, if not millions, of mirrors out there trying to make a few pennies off of Wikipedia's Google juice, none of which operate with WMF sanction or assistance.

The default hypothesis is that the WMF is a passive player in this situation. Until you find positive evidence that they are actively involved, it's wingnuttery to assume that they are. Don't be a wingnut.