

Washington Post adds Amazon buy-it-now links inside articles - panarky
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-divisive-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-cover-says-about-books-and-readers/2014/08/15/23163b8a-219a-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html

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eli
The Washington Post previously flirted with this idea _years_ ago. I'd be
careful jumping to conclusions about Bezos' influence. On The Media did a
radio segment on it (and the ethical issues it raises) in 2011:
[http://www.onthemedia.org/story/170064-web-links-money-
maker...](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/170064-web-links-money-makers/)
(click the stacked lines icon for a transcript). It's worth a listen.

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michaelq
It's one thing to hyperlink words to affiliate links in their text, but it's
completely different to force all their readers to read over "Buy it now"
while they're trying to read the article. Talk about interrupting the flow of
the article!

Also, how would you feel as a journalist if the investigative piece you'd
spent the last three weeks on was ultimately riddled with "buy it now"s?

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jessriedel
> Also, how would you feel as a journalist if the investigative piece you'd
> spent the last three weeks on was ultimately riddled with "buy it now"s?

Note that this is in the Style section, and they may draw a line between
"serious" reporting and entertainment reporting for the purposes of in-line
ads.

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mkal_tsr
> they may draw a line between "serious" reporting and entertainment reporting
> for the purposes of in-line ads

For now...

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tcc2161
I'd have no problem with inlined, hyperlinked titles but this implementation
with the buttons is pretty obnoxious.

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a3n
I think Bezos just turned the newsroom into whores standing in red-lit windows
on the street.

 _Possibly_ something like this would be OK if it was in a separate
"Resources" section at the end of the article.

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MysticFear
A much better solution than 'sponsored' articles. Gives journalists the
freedom to write freely without upsetting each individual sponsor. Change the
buy it now links accordingly, amazon sells nearly everything.

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eglover
It's funny, I didn't know Amazon acquired WP until earlier today.

I do appreciate these kinds of ads though. All due respect to Google's
algorithms, but I'd rather see ads about what I'm reading about. Not something
roughly based on my browser history which is usually something I was just
looking at and already made a decision on. (Does anyone ever click on Google
ads?)

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maxerickson
Jeff Bezos bought the Post, not Amazon.

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nbuggia
This doesn't seem like a very well thought out or innovative business model.

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m52go
It's better than...more ads. And paywalls. Got a better idea?

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LunaSea
How is it different than advertisement ?

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m52go
Advertisement is unrelated crap when I don't want to see it (unrelated to
content).

Affiliate links are related crap that I might want to see (related to
content).

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sswezey
I guess it was just a matter of time. I would have really liked if Bezos
actually wanted to have a nice, respectable newspaper without using it as a
marketing platform for Amazon.

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nsx147
it's better than native advertising

