Amazon builds its forces for social media

Amazon.com Inc is stepping up social media efforts after the largest internet retailer partially missed one of the hottest technology trends of recent years. Amazon hired a director of social media, John Yurcisin, from WPP's Ogilvy & Mather earlier this year to help the company come up with social strategies. He is the brother of Jeff Yurcisin, the general manager of Shopbop.com, an apparel retail website owned by Amazon. The company is also building a Social Games Group to take on Zynga, the leader in the space which is preparing for an initial public offering. Amazon is hiring developers and engineers for the effort. A poster in a kitchen area on Amazon's new Seattle campus unveiled the Social Games Group as "Worldwide Breaking News."Amazon has also posted social game jobs on Linked-In and tech jobs website Dice.com. One August 15 LinkedIn posting for a senior social games engineer said the group is "working on a cutting edge initiative within Amazon."Amazon was a pioneer in e-commerce, electronic books and reading devices and cloud computing. But it has lagged in social networking and social media, leaving Facebook and Zynga as leaders in the area. This occurred even as Amazon's main shopping website sported several social aspects that could have been exploited. One long-time feature that has helped Amazon become the largest internet retailer is the customer review section that occupies the bottom of most product pages.This was an early way to harness personal opinions on products. Still, such information is sent to shoppers by Amazon. There is currently little ability for customers who have purchased similar items in the past to connect directly with each other. It is also difficult to find out automatically what friends have recently bought on Amazon. It is not clear what John Yurcisin is working on at Amazon and a company spokesman declined to comment on Amazon's social plans. Yurcisin's LinkedIn page lists him as "director, social" at Amazon and says he has been in the position since May. From / Gulf News