Amazon Preps New Website Optimized For Tablets

By David Henry and Alistair Barr

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is rolling out a major redesign of its familiar website as it prepares to offer a new $250 tablet device to rival Apple Inc's iPad.

The changes in Amazon's online store "practically scream 'tablet-optimized'," TechCrunch blogger Sarah Perez wrote over the weekend after her site reported seeing a prototype of the company's new device.

The new web pages show a bigger search bar and less clutter to better highlight music, e-books, digital games and applications from the Amazon Appstore using Google's Android operating system, the blog said.

Amazon started rolling out the new design in the last days of August, spokeswoman Sally Fouts said in an email on Sunday.

"We are continuing to roll out the new design to additional customers, but I can't speculate on when the new design will be live for everyone," Fouts wrote.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, is introducing the new site and tablet device as the company goes beyond its roots selling through personal computers to reaching customers via the kind of mobile connections they increasingly use.

Getting more mobile devices into the hands of Amazon customers is important, too, because it may enable more impulse buying and increased regular purchases.

The device Amazon is developing sports a back-lit, 7-inch (17.8-cm) screen -- smaller than the iPad's and about the same as Research in Motion's PlayBook, TechCrunch reported earlier. The Amazon tablet is geared toward playing music and movies off the Internet.

TechCrunch, which said it had played with a testing prototype, reported that the plan was for Amazon to offer Amazon Prime -- its $79-a-year Internet streaming service -- for free along with the gadget.

The Internet retailer's first entry in the tablet computing arena -- its Kindle functions more like an electronic-book reader -- has been touted as a strong contender to Apple, whose iPad2 starts at $499, according to the company's website.

Amazon's tablet will be Wi-Fi only and come with a color touchscreen but a limited 6 gigabytes of memory, the tech blog said.

Motorola and Samsung have only chipped away at Apple's three-quarters share of the market, while Hewlett Packard threw in the towel by announcing it would kill off its TouchPad after a final production run.

This past week, Sony Corp leapt into the field with its own poorly reviewed device.

Analysts have been upbeat on Amazon's gadget, particularly if it beats the iPad on price. It may sell as many as 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter, becoming the top rival to Apple, Forrester Research estimates.

Apple sells between 7 million and 9 million tablets a quarter. (Reporting by David Henry, Alistair Barr and Edwin Chan; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions

Comments

[cre8ive]

03:23 AM on 09/06/2011

Amazon was on the right track when it created the Kindle app for iPad. More titles than iBooks, and they came out with it before Nook jumped on the bandwagon. Hence, I buy 90% of my books from them. But this new tablet taking on iPad is ridiculous. It's too late to get into this already very crowded field.

[Oceras]

10:31 PM on 09/05/2011

A redesign would be welcome. The current website is as user friendly as a jellyfish. And it is uuuuuggggly.

[p8q2b8ng]

06:45 PM on 09/06/2011

"user friendly as a jellyfish"
Are you implying jellyfish aren't user friendly? XD

[IBWatching]

08:29 PM on 09/05/2011

Amazon.

Refusing to pay their fair share of sales tax in California.

[dtracy]

09:43 PM on 09/05/2011

lets see, 70 business with affiliate relationships with amazon and overstock have left california. the liberal approach is to tax, tax, tax, and in this case, its costing jobs.

[Lemeritus]

02:44 PM on 09/06/2011

So.... the idea is, if you do business in a state, use that state's resources, etc., it's a bad thing to be expected to pay taxes???????

[CamelPaw357]

11:28 PM on 09/05/2011

They are complying with the law. California is a lost cause because of its extremely high taxes. So many good companies are leaving that state. Boeing will leave soon too; mark my words.

[SamRvs]

07:20 PM on 09/05/2011

I ask a question about Amazon on my blog: http://withbothhandsandaflashlight.blogspot.com

[drp103]

06:46 PM on 09/05/2011

Amazon Apple Deathmatch. Coming Soon!

[Zenith1959]

06:46 PM on 09/05/2011

I'm a bad consumer, mostly just get clothes when I need them, but I have bought a couple of things from Amazon when I couldn't find them locally, and thought it was very simple and easy to use.

[Highball]

06:13 PM on 09/05/2011

I don't understand why people are comparing the Amazon tablet and the iPad. They have almost nothing in common.

The Amazon tablet is more of a competitor to the Nook Color, if anything.

[TicTucTo]

04:45 PM on 09/05/2011

I absolutely love Amazon. I wonder where the name came from.

[redmaple]

12:04 AM on 09/06/2011

The name Amazon.com was chosen because the Amazon River is one of the largest rivers in the world and so the name suggests large size, and also in part because it starts with "A" and therefore would show up near the beginning of alphabetical lists.

Also, in their logo, a smile connect A and Z to inply that you can get anything from a to z.

[TicTucTo]

06:12 AM on 09/06/2011

Oh, really? That's pretty cool. Thanks!

[kamana2]

04:28 PM on 09/05/2011

What I like about Amazon is that the ‘experts’ predicted a quick demise for the operation yet Amazon is still chugging along after these many years.

“Winners never quit; quitters never win.”

[ResearchtheFacts]

04:28 PM on 09/05/2011

Their demographic is those making 50k and above. I believe it was Nielson or some other marketing research firm discovered out of all the online sellers Amazon has a steady flow of those making above 50k mark. The new design is much needed.

[ArchAngel]

03:58 PM on 09/05/2011

How about a search function that actually works?

[Mao Meow2]

03:57 PM on 09/05/2011

I think Amazon could eventually grow bigger than Wal-Mart.

[Highball]

06:14 PM on 09/05/2011

Different demographics.

[Mao Meow2]

06:50 PM on 09/05/2011

Not because they want it that way, only because of a technology gap. That gap will narrow over time. I'm sure Amazon wants to sell to everyone.

[kkdkdkdkdk]

03:56 PM on 09/05/2011

Good.

[peachfuzz]

03:46 PM on 09/05/2011

We could whine and carry on like Netflix users/non-users for days on end to make this a mountain out of a molehill.

[edenooch]

03:40 PM on 09/05/2011

its about time.