Amazon expanded its Kindle for Web offering Tuesday by announcing that not only can users read full books from the browser, they can also sell Kindle books from their own websites. The company demoed the new functionality during Google's (extremely lengthy) Chrome OS event, but said that anyone with a Web browser would be able to use the updated Web app and earn referral payments from Amazon.
Kindle for Web first made its debut in September of this year. At that time, Amazon restricted users to reading only the first chapter or two within the browser, but did allow people to embed those chapters on their own blogs or websites. Prior to this, there was no way to read Kindle books online—people could install platform-specific software on their Macs or PCs, but this was an inconvenient solution for those who couldn't install applications onto their machines (such as those on corporate computers, or people at the library).
We predicted in September that this limitation would disappear soon, and so it has: people who use the Kindle platform (on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Mac, PC, or actual Kindle devices) can now read full books in the browser. Why would anyone want to read a whole book in a browser? We're not exactly sure—I'm of the mind that no sane person would read lengthy content on a computer—but it can be handy if you find yourself stuck at a computer for a while and you want to catch up on a book you've already started elsewhere. Like other Kindle platforms, Kindle for Web will sync your last read page and let you access your notes and highlights.
Perhaps more interestingly, Internet users can now run Kindle stores of their own. Anyone who runs a website (yes, blogs included) can embed Amazon's widget and begin selling Kindle books, and even earn Amazon referral payments for every sale. It appears as if people who want to do this will have to embed their selections on a book-by-book basis, but that system would work out well for those who want to talk about books they just read and offer readers a way to buy them.
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