The Effects of the Facebook and Amazon Merger

Today Facebook and Amazon have announced that they are merging, but this information has yet to hit their press release sites. I went to both web sites to look at what information was being offered to the masses on this subject of the two companies merging, and I could not find any articles that even remotely mention this merger. However, other blog sites and business journals are leaking this story on the internet and this story is even making the 10 O'clock news.

Facebook and Amazon will merge by using the Facebook Connect utility, and is an opt-in system on Facebook. Therefore, if you want to use the service then you can, but you will not be forced to use the service. With the connect feature you can link your Amazon purchases and preferences with Facebook so that you can inform your friends what you are reading, what music you are listening to, and other types of purchases that you are making at Amazon. You will also be able to see and place a wish list, so that people will know what to buy you for your birthday, etc.

In my reading travels today I found some people are going...finally... finally these two companies get together and this looks like a natural fit. I can speculate that there are a number of people that just do not care. Their attitude is that it is just another merge of two big Internet giant companies. Then there are those that might be a little bit more like me... saying do I really want these two companies to merge. I think this is the question that needs to be answered first before these companies tie the knot so to speak and combine advertising technologies.

For those that are all in favor of this happening, I can partially see the point, but I have my reservations. But these people are most likely the people that use technology almost exclusively. Meaning for example that instead of calling their friend to ask where to meet for dinner they will text them instead and use their portable Wi-Fi device as a homing beacon to find their friends at some restaurant or pub. So for these people it only seems natural that the information from Amazon is shared with Facebook and vice-versa.

I then speculate there some people just will not care at all. They are so use to these companies merging that they are like...oh another one? Who is going to merge next week? This might be a valid response, and one that I might someday move too. I think that I am in the last category, being skeptical of the merger and mostly in sharing of data.

I would hope that there will be something in the security setting that will allow my Amazon purchases to remain private and not shared with God and country, or even my friends. I think that some things should retain a little more privacy, or at least I should have the ability to choose how much of my choices to share with the people around me. I like the feature that Amazon has that shows you possible other items that I might be interested in by analyzing the items that I have previously viewed and purchased, but I am not ready to share that info so easily with my friends via a forum like Facebook. Not to mention that not everyone on Facebook is a friend. Some people are co-workers for example. As for overall privacy I might not want my friends to know that I bought the book Setting up a Tent for Dummies before I went on my camping trip. Does this book even exist?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1674948/facebook-and-amazon-team-up-to-make-gift-shopping-easier

http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/07/facebook-amazon-recommendations/