Amazon.com, Inc., is a major internet retailer. The company’s website launched in 1995 as an online bookstore. Amazon has expanded to sell many types of products and services. The company manufactures the Kindle brand of e-book readers and tablet computers. Amazon also creates, produces, and distributes motion pictures and television programs for release in theaters and online. The company has pioneered cloud computing—that is, the storage of data and use of software via the internet, rather than on the user’s computer. Many businesses pay to use Amazon’s cloud-computing services. Amazon operates in almost every country in the world.
Amazon’s product-recommendation software has been one key to its popularity with consumers. When a person purchases a product, Amazon displays related products, using special software to predict which items the customer might want to buy. Amazon’s website also enables customers to read sample text from books and to view products from multiple angles. In addition, customers can leave product reviews and read reviews by others.
In 2007, Amazon introduced its Kindle e-book reader. This device enabled users to download texts directly from Amazon in an electronic format. Kindle spurred the company’s sales of e-books. Amazon also enabled authors to self-publish their works, distributing them via Amazon.com. By 2011, Amazon was selling more e-books than print books.
Jeff Bezos, an American computer scientist and businessman, founded Amazon in 1994. Originally, Amazon stored and packed its customers’ book orders in a garage in Seattle, and then shipped them via mail or package service. Today, orders are shipped from a vast network of warehouses in a number of cities.
Over the years, Amazon has expanded into new markets and technologies. Amazon first launched an internet video service in 2006, providing customers paid access to movies and TV programs. In 2014, Amazon released a voice-controlled device called the Echo that connects to the internet and acts as a virtual assistant. The company began producing original movies in 2015 through a subsidiary business. In 2017, Amazon acquired the Whole Foods supermarket chain. Amazon’s headquarters are in Seattle.
See Bezos, Jeffrey Preston; E-book.
