Amazon.com Goes From Plogs to Blog

Posted on April 29, 2007

Amazon.com has dumped the uncool idea of plogs from its website. Amazon launched plogs in February, 2006. The plogs must have only confused Amazon customers because Amazon has dropped them for a daily blog feature called Amazon Daily. Amazon has this explanation for any bewildered Amazon customers now wondering what has happened to their plogs.

What happened to my Plog?
The program that was Plogs has made way for the new and improved Amazon Daily. Your feedback and investment in Plogs has helped shape this new program. We hope you enjoy Daily as much as you did Plogs! Any authors you had subscribed to from Plogs have been transferred over to your Amazon Daily, as well as reminders and activity from friends.

Amazon.com's plog replacement Amazon Daily is an interesting daily blog covering entertainment news and products.

Amazon Daily is a blog-short for "web log"-that contains posts by editors from all over the company. Whether you're a die-hard fiction lover, a gadget geek, an avid collector of classic films or just a fan of what we sell, you'll find all sorts of entries that will interest you. Amazon Daily's home page contains all editorial posts (sorted so the most recent entries appear at the top); in the sidebar, they're sorted by topic, so you can browse one concept at a time instead of taking all of it in at once! Each post gives you the opportunity to provide private feedback to the editor as well as leave public comments for other customers to see.

Amazon Daily includes permalinks and comments. There are tags for a wide range of categories on the right side of the blog. Amazon members can customize Amazon Daily to remove categories they are not interested in. Amazon members can also vote on posts they like.

How can I interact with Amazon Daily?
At the bottom of each post you will find an assortment of things you can do once you have read that post. The first is vote whether or not you liked that post, which will give you the option to leave feedback. You can also leave public comments on that post. You will also see an options menu, which has many interesting features. As more interactive features for each post are introduced they will be added into the options menu.

The plog concept did not seem like a good idea when it was launched -- the name "plog" was silly and likely increased confusion at a time when blogs were becoming popular. Amazon.com was wise to learn from its mistakes and relaunch the service in the form of this new daily blog.