Amazon’s “Kindle for the web“–sigh. I’m a little underwhelmed. It’s not that the widget is bad, but it’s not a new feature, and I’d sort of forgotten about it even though I use it all the time in my “daily bargains” posts.
As soon as Amazon released the beta version of the widget back in September, I started embedding previews of daily bargain books on my posts. It works great (when it works–not every ASIN does), but there are a few problems. The widget is better suited for wide layouts than tall ones, and I was never able to effectively style it to better suit my blog. At the bottom of this post is an example of it in action.
My biggest complaint about Kindle for the web is that the widget-based approach might be great for selling things, but there’s no information yet on how it will be modified to work as a personal library interface. Where will it exist? In your Kindle Settings account? Will you be able to embed the widget somewhere else and still access your library through it? Will any widget work, no matter where it’s embedded?
I’m guessing Amazon will integrate it into kindle.amazon.com, where you can already access your synced notes and highlights. But it looks like we’ll have to wait a while longer to see how Amazon decides to implement it beyond just a sample previewer.