Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Crass commercialism with Amazon.

You may have noticed links to Amazon.com books and music etc appearing in posts where the items are vaguely relevant (sometimes). Yes you guessed it; I have given in to the pressure of the capitalist market forces that weigh down upon us all like a dark spectre just waiting to empty our wallets and our hearts.

I get a small commission if you buy the item. It's set up through Amazon Associates for those of you interested in doing the same.

I will try to keep the links to items I genuinely recommend for one reason or another, though sometimes simple relevance might suffice. For example it made sense to have a link to Sarah McLachlan's album on the post about her video even though I am not a fan of her music. I will also try to always include text which explains why the link has been made if it's not obvious - for example on the post about relative font sizes I linked to a Jeffrey Zeldman book - explaining I haven't read it but would like to.

Why am I going to such lengths to justify some simple links? Well, it would be nice to make a few bucks out of this site where possible, but I am sick of being bombarded with ads myself so I am trying to be careful about my use of them. And I would like to think that I put thought into any item in my designs. Plus I already have Google ads, which are context based, but the Amazon links I can control and actually link to truly relevant items, relevant to the sense of the piece as opposed to the words - but that's only valuable if I set some ground rules for myself in using them.

So if you see a link to an item on Amazon that you think is stretching the boundaries of relevancy or good taste - rap me on the knuckles. ;)

In the meantime, if you are disgusted at my capitalist tendencies check out this link:
coverClick to buy on Amazon. I am halfway through reading this book. I knew nothing about Che Guevara before this book and wanted to educate myself - it's a heavy enough read but I think it's really interesting. I will definitely post more about this book when I finish it.

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