Amazon changes?

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Sat June 4th, 2011, 5:39 am

I've noticed what seem to be a few changes at Amazon lately. For instance, the communities seem to be totally gone (not that I participated, anyway, or hardly even looked at them. The conversations seemed either boring or argumentative). And there doesn't seem to be a way, anymore, to find someone by their name, or to add them as a "friend" or "interesting person."

I am kind of all thumbs when it comes to Amazon, so it could just be me.... or have they removed some of their features? Thought some of you Amazonians on here would know...

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Sat June 4th, 2011, 11:18 am

Ack, they really have been screwing around with the communities and I like it not. I don't have "my communities" page any more, so I can't take a quick glance to see if there are any topics of interest to me. There is a navigation pane on the far right that shows recent discussions, but they fall away if you're not actively clicking and reading the posts and you have to go to the community itself to see if there's any new topics of interest. I like it not.

This all seemed to start around mid May when this forumwas started. There's a sticky announcement at the top about Amazon's new policy about author self promotion.

Amazon Community Team says:

First we would like to say "Welcome" to our new forum. The `Meet Our Authors' community is designed to give authors a space to engage with one another and promote their latest and greatest works. This will also provide a great chance for customers to talk to the authors.

With the advent of the new community, we will no longer allow self-promotional posts in other communities. Starting on Saturday, May 14th, all "shameless self promotion" activity will be limited to the `Meet Our Authors' community. Promotional threads outside of these forums will be removed.

I read some of the threads on this new forum for a while, and there's been much gnashing of teeth and stamping of feet, as well as a larger group who are trying to make it an active community. Unfortunately, unless I'm purposely going there and reading threads it won't show up in my navigation bar and I quickly forget about it. Just like I have with the Amazon odditiescommunity which occasionally had some fun, albeit bizarre, threads to read

If you are ever looking for time suck, search products tagged Amazon oddities. Oh my.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Sat June 4th, 2011, 2:26 pm

hmm. Never noticed, but then again I never hug out at the communities anyway.

I also didnt know you could search people by their names. I only have like 4 friends. I never saw the point in adding more. Is there a point?

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Sat June 4th, 2011, 4:25 pm

I never saw the point in adding more. Is there a point?

Not any more. Once upon a time you got a daily feed kind of thing on your profile page. I did like having friends when I wanted to go and see what they were doing/reading so I'll miss that - they are all gone from my profile page. There's a thread just started discussing it here.

I wonder if this is another effort to stop the troll activity.

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Sun June 5th, 2011, 4:16 am

[quote=""Misfit""]I did like having friends when I wanted to go and see what they were doing/reading so I'll miss that - [/quote] That it what I liked to do, also. There are a couple of reviewers who have similar reading tastes to mine, and I liked to occasionally check their profile to see what they've read/reviewed. Now there's no easy way to do that.

Thanks for the info.

ETA: They definitely seem to be making a lot of changes lately. For instance, for a while the "are you over 13?" question when posting a review was gone. Now it's back.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Sun June 5th, 2011, 12:04 pm

[quote=""Michy""]That it what I liked to do, also. There are a couple of reviewers who have similar reading tastes to mine, and I liked to occasionally check their profile to see what they've read/reviewed. Now there's no easy way to do that.

Thanks for the info.

ETA: They definitely seem to be making a lot of changes lately. For instance, for a while the "are you over 13?" question when posting a review was gone. Now it's back.[/quote]

I agree. I recommend either saving those profiles in a favorite folder or if you use a feed reader putting the URL from the most recent reviews page will give you new activity (although vine reviews don't show up as new activity).

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Tue June 7th, 2011, 10:23 pm

RE: the friends changes one of the commenters just got this email back and copied at the discussion here.

prisrob says:
OK, new response with some positive aspects.

Dear Pris,

I'm with Executive Customer Relations here at Amazon.com.
I've reviewed your inquiry and understand you're concerned about the deprecation of the The Friends and Interesting People feature from your profile. While I know you're disappointed with our stance on this matter, I want to assure you the information you received from our Communities team on June 7th was correct.

As mentioned, due to changes to the profile format, the Recent Activity, Interesting People and Friends and Profile Search features have been discontinued. We understand the popularity and use of these features and regret any inconvenience this might cause you or any regular user. We're working on new features and we hope you'll enjoy those as well once they've launched. I'm unable to relay any details at this time but we hope you'll check back to see what may be updated.

I've engaged our Communities Business team and offered them your feedback directly. I'm sorry you didn't receive a response to your inquiry and anticipate one will be offered shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Pris, we appreciate your understanding and many contributions to the website. While we won't be able to comment further on this matter, we're always happy to help if you have any other questions - you can click a button to contact us by e-mail or phone from any Help page on our website.
If you have further questions, please reply to this email.

Thank you for contacting Amazon.com

.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Wed June 8th, 2011, 5:58 am

I've reviewed your inquiry and understand you're concerned about the deprecation of the The Friends and Interesting People feature from your profile.

"deprecation" ????

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Wed June 8th, 2011, 11:48 am

[quote=""Margaret""]"deprecation" ????[/quote]

Heh, I had to look it up. Interesting choice of word.