In-app purchases are a pretty big deal to developers; there’s a reason the “top grossing” apps in the Android store are mostly free. Now Amazon is trying to extend that logic to buying… well, anything you see inside an app.
Amazon calls it the “Mobile Associates API”, and essentially, it means you can make anything in an app an ad for it on Amazon. And it’s not necessarily a bad deal for developers, either:
The Mobile Associates API allows developers to sell real products from the millions of items at Amazon, whether physical or digital, from inside their apps or games while earning up to 6% in advertising fees from those purchases. The Mobile Associates API is an extension of Amazon Associates, our successful web-based affiliate program created in 1996, paying advertising fees to hundreds of thousands of affiliates worldwide.
6% may not sound like much, but consider that some apps can be seen by millions of people in a given day. 1% of those buying could put a lot of cash in the pockets of developers, and you have to admit, being able to click a link to buy a book is a lot less annoying than having to hit up your friends on Facebook for in-game gold.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to crush all retailers under Amazon’s heel as it builds a massive fulfillment network that makes consumer gratification instant and Jeff Bezos can afford his own planet. But, hey, it’s convenient!