Amazon & LinkedIn – Collaborative Prospects
LinkedIn recently announced launch of its open application platform for others to develop social applications. (http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=600). Out of those, the one which caught my attention was an application named as the “Reading List” developed by Amazon. Those, who haven’t seen this yet, would probably want to take a look at the Demo video on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNlANI9juY8). However, if you think about this, this is not the first time somebody has developed an application like this on a social network. So, you might be wondering as to what makes this one different?
Two things which I may point out –
1) This one is developed by Amazon, whereas other social networking applications on other networks are mainly developed by individual developers. So, one can expect that this is only the tip of the iceberg and there is more to come in terms of achieving synergies between LinkedIn and Amazon and we might see much more functionality added to this app in the near future.
2) With Reading List, LinkedIn has become part of Amazon’s affiliate network and thus generating an additional source of income. (A closer look of the application and URLs shows that LinkedIn has an Amazon affiliate tag inserted in all the links which goes out from LinkedIn to Amazon via this app).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014302910X/ref=cm_li_v_cr_self?tag=linkedin-20
To me this integration between Amazon and LinkedIn looks much cleaner than other applications seen previously on networks like FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/apps/#/apps/application.php?id=2397701323&b=&ref=pd_r). The prospects are immense - There is much more which can be done with this application and many more functionalities, which I would like to see in this, but nonetheless this is a good start. Some of the features would come best if developed in joint collaboration between Amazon and LinkedIn - a few functionalities listed below may require customer profile sharing between Amazon and LinkedIn.
1) Access to LinkedIn Profile data can take Amazon’s personalized recommendations to the next level. Especially considering that Amazon never had as much insight into Customer’s interests as that can be got from this exposure.
As an example, consider this scenario: If LinkedIn can pass the Customer’s interests data to Amazon and Amazon can parse that information intelligently and generate recommendations based on it. Also, if other people in the network have any of the recommendations generated by Amazon it can be boosted further as part of recommendation algorithm. This will make recommendations far more relevant and interesting to a specific customer. Wouldn’t that be something to consider?
2) Next, I would love to see the “Buy Together” kinds of promotions generated out of the reading list from my network on LinkedIn. This type of feature can generate more sales for Amazon, additional affiliate revenue for LinkedIn and of course extra savings for the consumer. Any “Buy together” promotion generated out of the customer’s network reading list will have more chances of conversion compared to books otherwise suggested by Amazon on their product detail pages. In future, Amazon can come up time to time with such promotions for LinkedIn customers as part of Reading List app.
3) Another exciting possibility is to provide ‘Customer Reviews’ for the user from people in ‘his’ network. Amazon can show an option on product detail pages to look at the customer reviews written by people in his network. It will be worth experimenting to see how it affects the conversion rate. (This will again require profile sharing).
4) Quick transfer of books (SKUs) from the Customer’s ‘ListMania’ lists on Amazon.com so that he/she can save time creating a reading list on his LinkedIn profile. This can be done in a simple manner like the way you migrate your address book when you switch your mail provider.
The more you think on it, the more possibilities you consider. However, the bottom-line will remain on LinkedIn’s and Amazon’s willingness to collaborate and experiment and generate interests about such applications on social networks.
If there is yet another feature you would like to see with respect to this social networking application, please add your thoughts by posting comments to this article. I will be happy to update the post with interesting relevant suggestions (Of Course with due credit to your name).
Comments
Thanks Rockey - like the idea of widening the app's focus, linking user data and preferences to more choices on Amazon, not just books but other goods.
Posted by: Tim Greenhalgh | December 8, 2008 10:55 AM
Just to add to your options - Linkedin has the feature of "Experts" in a particular area based on an answer given and rated by the user who has asked the question. If a recommendation for a product for e.g I have expertise in selecting best Coffee and I recommend a particular brand of coffee. This will be valued much more by members than a person who does not have expertise.
Posted by: Sandeep | December 12, 2008 06:27 AM
Rockey, good eye as I did not notice the LinkedIn affiliate id. LinkedIn seems to be taking a calculated approach to generating revenue that does not affect the integrity of the site. However, I do not see a synergy between LinkedIn and e-commerce because users are not in purchasing mode while browsing LinkedIn. Instead they are in "get a job" or "connect with new people" mode. I think Facebook has the same problem such that advertising on Facebook is like advertising to someone watching TV; the conversion rates are low. On the other hand, people using search engines have a much higher probability of being in "buy it now" mode.
Posted by: Rober Miller | December 16, 2008 06:38 AM
My first note to this would be - Possibly LinkedIn must have interest in letting Amazon on its site, which will add to LinkedIn's revenue and that will go similar with any Facebook experiment as well.
Secondly, while this may look very lucrative as a feature, it will have its own limitations. In reality, now we see one link on the LinkedIn landing page. How many more would we see before we stop visiting LinkedIn?
Thirdly, this is a cool proposition for developers as this is a reusable component which essentially needs some customization and does a quick search in your address book and displays result and finally takes you out to a relevant landing page of the tool-host.
Indeed, the way to go...
Posted by: Mayank Jain | December 17, 2008 03:44 PM
I too noticed that LinkedIn became an Amazon affiliate as a part of this deal. To me, I'd like to have the ability to add MY Amazon affiliate link to my reading list. I asked LinkedIn about this and it's not on their radar screen. Interestingly, they did not fess up to being an Amazon affiliate themselves.
Posted by: Tim Johnson | December 19, 2008 09:06 PM
Tim - Thanks for sharing your idea. This is really an interesting idea to be able to provide your own affiliate tag. This can be an interesting model if LinkedIn agrees to it :-). LinkedIn can get commission from Amazon and in turn pay out a certain % of it to it's members.
But this model can also be abused very easily if LinkedIn goes this route..Affiliates will start adding products in their reading list even if they are not actually reading or interested in the items, which defeats the purpose of this app.
Though in order to encourage people to use this app, LinkedIn can pay out in other ways to members who are helping LinkedIn generating revenue using this. LinkedIn can offer discounts on premium membership and their other products. I will be happy to promote the app and use more if I can get free LinkedIn premium membership in turn.
Posted by: Rockey Nebhwani | December 21, 2008 11:13 AM