This has been all over the major blogs today, so I am not going to blather too much about it, just give my opinion. Standing on one leg, Amazon now lets web developers add payment stuff to their site, so they can sell things.
To me, this is a true game changer, especially for entrepreneurs. For most start up websites, the only two sources of revenue are advertising (which sucks), and getting money, in some way, from visitors. Handling payments yourself is cumbersome and way too expensive. Most third party services are geared towards enterprises, and their payment systems are far too complex. On the other end, there is Paypal, which is the third-grader way to do it. Heck, when I was in student groups, that’s the way we would do it, because it was so simple. Amazon comes in right at the middle, with yet another service for startups. I saw this, and breathed a sigh of relief, as this is something we all had been looking for, and what better a provider than Amazon.
But I think the bigger story is the reasoning behind it. Think back for a second…. what on earth is a bookseller doing? Database services, web hosting, Mechanical Turks?! Obviously, as a publicly traded company, they have a need to grow to keep shareholders happy. But it’s an important lesson. By being the world’s largest books-and-everything-else store, they built up the expertise. And the equipment. Why keep it in-house?
Sell what you are good at.
