I’m not an avid fan of blogging for money. As my tagline says, “Giving dorky people like me something to read about” is my main philosophy. If I find it interesting and haven’t read it really anywhere else I’ll write about it. I certainly will never search out any ways to make money, the banner ads are just because “why not” and cover the domain hosting costs, plus they make my page look a little more even.
Anyways, the point of this post is Amazon Associates program now offers widgets. There should be several good uses for these, so if you are interested in making a little more money, customize one of them today.
Here is the e-mail:
Announcing Amazon Widgets
Dear Amazon Associate:
The Amazon Associates program is excited to announce the launch of Amazon Widgets . Amazon Widgets are small, visually dynamic, easily configurable tools that allow you to feature products from Amazon on your website, blog or social networking pages. In as little as one minute you can populate a widget with your favorite Amazon products, your comments about those products, and select from a set of color and layout themes to match both your mood and website.
Widgets are an extension to our classic Associate Links offerings, and the simple-to-use web interface for building and implementing both widgets and links is at http://widgets.amazon.com . Just as with our classic Associates link formats you can earn referral fees of up to 10% on these new widgets.
The Widgets
We have launched the following widgets:
Slideshow : Pick your favorite images from the Amazon catalog and present them as a stylish slideshow. Showcase your favorite CD cover art, present recently read books, or even reveal your favorite breakfast cereals. Slideshow also lets you overlay your comments on the selected images.
My Favorites : Express yourself by recommending and commenting on your favorite products from Amazon. This widget lets everyone know how you feel and what you like by showing product images, information and your own comments.
Quick Linker : Quickly build links to products on Amazon without having to visit Associates Central. By inserting a set of custom HTML tags as you write your content, you can quickly link to products on Amazon. For example, typing <a type=”amzn”>Harry Potter</a> would link to a Search Results page on Amazon for the term “Harry Potter.” This is a great new tool that will be handy for all Associates and bloggers that write their own content.
Wish List : Display your Amazon Wish List on your site and let friends, family, and others know what you want.
Product Cloud : Take tag clouds or word clusters one step further by showing Product Clouds. Product Clouds engage site visitors by displaying product titles that are relevant to the content of the page in a cloud or cluster with the most popular product bolded. Site visitors can click on the title to directly visit the product page on Amazon.
Amazon Unbox Video Previewer : Show movie studio and TV network previews for a wide range of new release and classic movies or television shows available from the Amazon Unbox video download service. Users can select by attributes, such as genre, for previews they want to show on their websites.
Start Now
You can see all of the above widgets in action on the Associates blog . Even better, start building your own at http://widgets.amazon.com . And stay tuned! We expect to launch additional widgets in the future. If you have ideas for new widgets or feedback on our current ones, please let us know .
The Amazon Associates Team
I am just now testing the waters with Amazon Associates. I’m interested to see what happens with it. My blog centers around books, so it seemed a logical fit.