ReadWriteWeb

Despite some of the challenges of lending library books in digital formats, many libraries are exploring the e-book option. However, although there are a number of choices for e-readers and digital content providers, the list of devices that let you check out library books hasn't included the most popular e-reader of all: the Kindle.

That is, until today, with the announcement from Amazon this morning that it is launching a Lending Library "later this year" that will let Kindle owners check out books from their local library.

This week, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) issued a warning to its members, suggesting they "educate themselves on the pros and cons of submitting content to Amazon." The letter refers to the recently launched Amazon Appstore, a curated market place for Android applications. The issue at hand is the pricing, or rather, Amazon's complete control of the pricing. When Amazon sells an app, it pays developers either 70% of the sale price, or 20% of the list price, whichever is greater.

It's this pricing structure that IGDA finds troubling. But do developers agree? Let's find out in this week's ReadWriteMobile poll.

Amazon has just announced that it's releasing a new Kindle: "Kindle with Special Offers." This version is $25 off the regularly priced e-reader (that is, for $114 instead of $139), because those "special offers" include advertising.

The e-books themselves won't have ads in them, but the home screen and the screensaver will. Sponsors for the first series of screensavers include Buick, Proctor & Gamble, and Visa.

Ads themselves hardly qualify as "special" and neither does the rather paltry discounted price. But to sweeten the deal, Amazon says there will be "special offers" available to these Kindle owners, including half-off Amazon Gift cards, discounted Audible books and Amazon mp3 albums, and a $10 credit when you buy one of 30 Kindle bestsellers with your Visa card.

Amazon may integrate the emerging technology known as NFC (near field communication) into its mobile applications, allowing customers to pay for items at point-of-sale using only their mobile phone. The technology is currently being explored by the company's Amazon Payments unit, BusinessWeek recently reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the project.

Recent changes to Google's search algorithm have sought to reduce the rankings of what Google has described as "low quality" and "low value add" sites. And while some of these websites have seen a significant drop in traffic, we may find that content farms aren't eradicated. Rather, they're relocating. Impact Media's Mike Essex suggests their new destination may be e-books.

On the Internet, many content farms are full of unoriginal content, often scraped from other sites, and republished under different headlines. The advent of easy self-publishing makes it incredibly simple for this process to be replicated in e-books.

Even before last Monday's roll-out of the new Cloud Drive, I was storing my files in the Amazon cloud. I use Amazon S3, its Simple Storage Service, although admittedly I'm a fairly new customer. I'm using the service to host images for my personal blogs, I haven't uploaded much more than that. Yet.

I've been meaning to do so, particularly following the receipt of my first bill for the service, amounting to a whopping $0.09. I have 40 some-odd GB of music that I'd like to store (and be able to play) in the cloud, for example.

But the introduction of the Cloud Drive has made me rethink my plans. Should I move my files there? Here are some of the pros and cons:

Amazon has just launched a suite of music products that allow users to store their tracks online and them stream them over the Web or to any Android device courtesy of the Amazon MP3 mobile application. The launch has the tech world abuzz, not only because Amazon beat Apple and Google to the punch, both of whom are reportedly working on digital lockers of their own, but because Amazon hasn't even received the record labels' permission to host these tracks on its servers as of yet.

But is Amazon's cloud-based music storage service really all that innovative? Some journalists and analysts are saying it's not. Do you agree?

Update: Amazon has now launched the service described below, under the name Amazon Cloud Drive.

Amazon is preparing a music locker service, a website where you'll be able to listen to music you've uploaded from your local collection (or otherwise proven you've bought) now streaming from any computer with a web browser. That according to a number of media reports, most recently by Ethan Smith at the Wall St. Journal, who reports that the service may be announced as early as tomorrow.

Rasmus Andersson, developer of sites such as Dropular and Spotnicc, has created a template for setting up an Amazon EC2 instance for running Node.js or other Web applications. You can use it save time setting up and deploying virtual servers while experimenting with new ideas.

The steps are outlined here and the template can be found Github here. It seems like a handy way to get up and running with Node.js.

As expected, Amazon has opened its new Appstore for Android today, letting Android users purchase and download apps via the website or through a new native Android app.

As Sarah Perez noted yesterday in her report on the store's launch, the new marketplace for Android apps may be an important step forward for both Android users and developers. The Amazon store will compete directly with the official Google Marketplace, often criticized for poor search and discovery - a drawback for those looking to buy and build Android apps.