vedana.net

Amazaudible

Ev is talking about how Amazon could out-Netflix Netflix. I feel the same way about Audible- I'm a huge fan of theirs, and I actually get through books quicker via 1.5 hours/day of listening/commuting than I do paging through deadtree on weekends. The user experience is brilliant- browse, buy, download, transfer to iPod, listen, all seamlessly.

But I want to link directly to the books I'm listening to on Audible's site (not possible). I want to be able to recommend them to friends, and have friends recommend them to me, with direct URLs. I want a public wishlist so people can buy me stuff to listen to (Audible wishlists are private). I want web services so I can do cool stuff with Audible's database. I want Amazon-level customer support (Audible doesn't even send me canned responses...). I want to open up browser tabs so I can do one-off browsing (Audible locks you into their site with some bizarre incestuous javascript linking scheme). I want an affiliate program (maybe the market's too small for this?).

Aaron Swartz echoed my sentiment a month ago: "You can also download it for $2.95 from audible.com, but their site is evil and won’t allow me to link to it. If you manage to get it through their awful site, you can put it on your iPod..."

Maybe Amazon could just buy Audible and make all this happen?