Tagged: Amazon.com

Amazon.com recently gobbled up more than $1 billion dollars’ worth of real estate in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The company is growing like crazy – we’ll hear on Thursday how fast quarterly sales and profit are growing. 

It’s spread way beyond retailing – the latest is that Amazon is functioning like a bank – lending money to its third-party merchants. It's just one of the many ways in which Amazon is flexing its muscles. 

If you’ve bought something recently on Amazon.com, you may have noticed it’s testing a new way to deliver packages. The Internet retailer has quietly installed non-descript lockers where you can pick up an order, rather than having it sent to a personal address.

The pilot program is available in four cities including Seattle.

Based on book sales, Republicans are dominating Democrats in most of the country (including Washington state), according to a new “election heat map” created by book retailer Amazon.com.

There’s been growing speculation lately that Amazon has a smartphone in the works. But why?

It’s a crowded market out there in smartphone land. There’s a whole bunch of phones based on Google’s Android software, there’s the Microsoft Windows phone, and of course, Apple’s iPhone.

Also, a small sampling of people on a downtown Seattle street didn't show a whole lot of interest in an Amazon phone.

Amazon.com says it’s helping sponsor the fireworks display at Seattle’s Lake Union. It’s a first for the company, which drew criticism in a Seattle Times article for a lack of philanthropy around the city.

Amazon will be having its annual shareholder meeting in Seattle on May 24 and Seattle area unions are gearing up. Today, they staged a protest in the plaza below Amazon's new headquarters buildings in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

It was something of a forerunner to a rally planned for the upcoming meeting.  Several union activists carried signs that read,

"Hello, Amazon, see you on May 24."

By John Cook of Geekwire

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos traces his love of books back to some of the classics of science fiction. But now one of the leading author organizations in the genre is taking up arms against the Seattle online bookseller.

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America — which hosts the prestigious Nebula Awards – announced on its Web site today that it is redirecting links to other booksellers including indiebound.org, Powell’s, and Barnes and Noble.