Amazon.com released website widgets!

Amazon.com announced yesterday that they are releasing widgets for websites and blogs to make it easier to promote their products on websites.

Amazon.com has had the option to include web advertising on websites however it has not been as good as it could. The banner ads were garish and the product linking options felt a little limiting.

With Astore advertisements working, we see that they can be make to match the colors of your website, but only astore products. Now they have finally announced 7 new widgets for Amazon.com products.

Make Money as an affiliate

While you won't be able to quit your day job, but it is great to have a few dollars to save, or get paid with gift certificates so you won't spend as much of your own money on Christmas gifts. We all know how that adds up. Although you don't have to have an Amazon affiliate account to use most (6) of their widgets, there is no reason why you shouldn't. There is no membership fee.

Display Amazon products more easily

The following widgets are currently available:

• Slideshow


• My Favorites


• Wish List


• Product Cloud


• Amazon Unbox Video Previewer


• Quick Linker


• Search

Slideshow

Slideshow takes product pictures and turns them into a slideshow. You can ad captions to each picture. You can do a search by keyword in each Amazon product group. You can't use a category. This would require periodic maintenance since products would eventually be dropped or discontinued. I think this would be great for a micro-website.



Amazon does not yet have its own plugin for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

My Favorites

My Favorites lets you select your favorite products and have them show up in an 'I recommend' box along with details. You can change the title, colors and width starting at 160px which is a typical sidebar size. If you have your website color's hexcode you can use that for a color so everything matches perfectly. You can make it 'taller' by increasing the number of rows, so more products fit. You have to select individual products not a category, so this will require some maintenance as well.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Wish List

Wish List takes your Amazon favorites and includes them in a widget for your family as well as blog visitors with similiar tastes. To use this widget, you'll have to use an e-mail address that currently has an Amazon Wishlist set up. It could be your own, or belong to someone else. The system will check for you. Wish lists could be for you or help you plan an event for someone else like their wedding gifts. Don't forget to make the list public or it won't be available.

Even though I had set up my wish list, Amazon could not find my list.

Product Cloud

Product Cloud takes keywords and makes them show up as keywords in a jumble called a tag cloud. When someone 'mouses-over' a keyword, a small pop up appears with information about a product with the same keyword. This could be effective on a website that focuses on a specific issue. When a visitor clicks on that pop up, they end up at the amazon product page. I'm very excited about this widget. This widget lets you change all the colors, width (160px+), height, and it does let you select a category so you'll be able to set it up and forget it.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer shows movie studio and TV network previews for a range of new release and classic movies or television shows available from the Amazon Unbox video download service. You can select which attributes to use in selecting new video previews. This lets you adjust the size with a minimum of 510x425. You can also select by genre and studio. Do you want only movies or TV and movies, no problem!



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Quick Linker

Quick Linker lets you quickly add Amazon search results to your site via HTML code and a keyword.

Search

This new search widget is much more attractive than the old one. I am very excited about it. I did not ever add the old search box to my website because I thought it looked too ugly. I did not want to redesign my website to match it! It is even better because the search results show up in the widget on your website instead of taking the visitor directly to Amazon.



Amazon does not yet have its own plug in for Wordpress blogs like this one. Copying the code in HTML view didn't work so I added it as a 'direct code' ad using the Adsense Manager plugin.

Learn more

You can find more information at http://widgets.amazon.com/