All Things Distributed

APRIL 1, 2006

In order to get closer to their customers, humanize Amazon, increase sales, and stay modern, Amazon.com has decided to make all Instant Messenger (IM) handles of its employees public. This way Amazon.com customers will get unprecedented access to the talented engineers at Amazon to answer all their questions, or just to have an interesting conversation about a new book or that old sci-fi movie.

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All Things Distributed

APRIL 9, 2006

In the A Word On Scalability posting I tried to write down a more precise definition of scalability than is commeonly used. There were good comments about the definition at the posting as well as in a discussion at The ServerSide.

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Scalability Performance 60

All Things Distributed

APRIL 4, 2006

I don't want to turn this into a corporate announcement weblog, but I believe some of my new readers may be interested in this. Go check out Amazon Wire, a podcast about books, music, movies and those who create them.

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All Things Distributed

APRIL 2, 2006

It is nice that people thought yesterday’s posting was funny. There is however a very serious aspect to it. From the reactions I understand that people think that posting IM handles is too far-out to even consider seriously, which made it a good April’s Fools joke. For me, I do not believe it is ridiculous for a company to engage in real-time interaction.

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