Amazon Archive

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels has posted a chart (displayed below) of Amazon S3 storage usage over the past three years. The latest number for Q3 2009 is 82 billion objects inside of S3. Pretty amazing growth considering that the service was barely used in 2006. Early 2007 shows 2-3 billion objects.

So many startups I talk to are using Amazon’s cloud computing services in some fashion. For example, Twitter uses S3 for icon storage. We use S3 for storage on all of our projects including all static images and files on CenterNetworks.

Here are today’s startup and entrepreneurial updates:

• GetGlue destination site goes live – ReadWriteWeb and Mashable
• New FBFoundations Features and Updates – Stay n Alive
• Amazon AWS launches New EC2 High-Memory Instances – Amazon
• A simple flowchart on Creately about Creately – Creatly
• Cart Cobranding, Old Journal-Style Love, bug fixes – Smugmug

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Online retailer Zappos, has announced that the company has been acquired by Amazon and will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon. Tony has posted a CEO letter that he sent to all of Zappos employees today. Marketwatch notes that the deal is worth $807 million and Hsieh mentions in the letter that it’s not a cash deal rather a stock deal.  Total deal value about $850 million including $40 in cash and restricted stock. 

Amazon expects the acquisition to close this fall. Hsieh notes that there are no plans to cut headcount and he and the other executives plan to stay on at Zappos.

From Marketwatch, Amazon said in a statement that under terms of the deal, it will buy all outstanding shares, warrants and options of Zappos in exchange for roughly 10 million Amazon shares with their value based on average closing prices in June and July. In addition, Amazon “will provide Zappos employees with $40 million in cash and restricted stock units,” Amazon said.

Update: Based on today’s Amazon share price, the deal is worth more than the $807 million reported in the Amazon release. It looks like the final price will be determined when the deal closes.

One can only wonder if Zappos awesome usage of Twitter played a part in the acquisition. Will Netflix be next?

Bloomberg news is reporting that Netflix shares are up (NFLX – 6.2% as of the time of this post) on rumors that Amazon may acquire the movie rental service. Check the Bloomberg post for more details.

“There’s heavy call buying and the stock is up on renewed takeover talk, with Amazon being mentioned specifically,” said Fred Ruffy, the senior options strategist at WhatsTrading.com, a New York-based provider of options market analysis. “It’s pretty typical of speculative call buying.”

From Bloomberg, “Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation. Patty Smith, a spokeswoman for Seattle-based Amazon.com, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. ”

Amazon stock is up as well today although the market is up overall.

(side note – it’s nice to see Bloomberg listing the email addresses of their journalists at the end of the story. It would be great if all newspaper/magazine sites did this as well.)

It seems nearly every startup I talk to is using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Either S3 for storage, EC2 for processing or one of the other options. Here at CN we use S3 for storage of nearly all static files.

Today Amazon has announced their third annual “Startup Challenge” which offers startups that are using AWS a chance to win a variety of prizes and service credits. Startups in United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Israel are eligible to enter and the entry period ends on August 25th. Also, startups must have earned no more than $5 million in annual revenue and/or raised more than $5 million in venture capital funding.

The top prize is $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits, mentoring sessions from an AWS technical expert, and premium gold support for one year. There are a variety of other winners as well.

What’s great about the Startup Challenge is that unlike many startup contests, it doesn’t appear that Amazon is taking any equity for the prize amounts (of course you should check the rules to verify). My take is simple – if you use AWS in any form, submit your entry because, at a minimum, you get a $25 credit (which for CN is like 6 mos free service).

Amazon has announced that they are offering free credit card processing through their AmazonPayments division through the end of September. AmazonPayments is similar to PayPal and Google Checkout. The service allows you to accept credit cards for products, services and subscriptions.

It appears the free processing was initially available only to non-profit organizations but is now open to any business.

There are a few restrictions:

• you can only sell up to $2 million – after that you pay fees
• you must have an average order size of more than $5
• the account must be new – created after April 29, 2009

One additional thing to consider if you use the service as a trial for subscriptions (where you charge your customer monthly/yearly/etc.). You will need to stay with Amazon for as long as the customer wants to remain a paying customer or you will need to ask them to move to whatever other service you use. This is something I’ve thought a lot about as I look at billing options for my startup. It might be worth testing Amazon on a one-time billing option only.

Amazon has announced that they want you for their upcoming new television campaign. The ad is part of the “Your Amazon Ad Contest,”  contest where you can win $20k in Amazon gift cards.

An Amazon judging panel will review all contest submissions and select five finalists based on:

• Creativity
• Overall appeal
• Likelihood of inspiring viewers to shop with Amazon

Amazon notes “suitable to air to a family audience on a national network.” Apparently they will pick finalists and let viewers pick a winner. One winner the Amazon judges picks will win $10k and the user winner will win $10k as well.

This type of “crowdsourced” ad creation seems to be pretty popular these days. For a small prize, Amazon gets press and interested customers – it’s a smart move. The customers who create videos will also pimp them around providing for even more awareness of the contest and Amazon.