Amazon's New MP3 Widget

Amazon.com unveiled a nifty new widget today that allows associates like me to embed a player with thirty second clips and direct links to Amazon where said MP3s can be purchased.

I spent the last hour or so tinkering with it and added a bunch of my favourite tracks from some recent albums, as you can see here:



I like the fact that clicking on the song title, album or artist name takes you straight to the appropriate page on Amazon, and the audio clips are a nice feature which hopefully will lead to a few impulse purchases.

One drawback is that the player uses Flash, which is something I normally try to avoid, but the compact version I chose doesn't seem to hog too many system resources.

The other problem is that Amazon limits what you can do to change the look of the widget, and I don't think the options presented work very well with my colour pallet. I'll probably continue tinkering with it to see if I can come up with something better for the sidebar, but in the meantime you can take this first draft for a spin, hear some clips of some really great songs, and if you make a purchase you'll help support the station.

Amazon is currently offering associates like me a 10% commission on all MP3 purchases, which is more than double what they're offering for CDs, so if you do decide to make a purchase through one of my links, buying 5 MP3s would probably send more support my way than buying an entire CD.

Just something extra to think about.