Lendle axed by Amazon
In my recent eRead* presentation @ NIULitConf, I mentioned the eBook sharing site Lendle. I learned yesterday (by way of the twitterfeed) that Amazon has revoked Lendle’s API access, thereby crippling the Lendle website.
…the reason our API and Amazon Associates accounts have been revoked is that Lendle does not ‘serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site.’
We take issue with this, as Lendle was built from the ground up to ensure that it would be beneficial to authors, publishers, and Amazon. Our site requires that you be willing to lend books before you can borrow them. We even went so far as to allow users to sync their Lendle accounts with their Kindle accounts, so that we could ensure anyone who borrows books on Lendle has previously purchased lendable books from Amazon. Our philosophy is: You can’t borrow if you don’t lend, and you can’t lend if you don’t buy.” (read more…)
What’s an API, anyway? Check here for an explanation that I’ve already spent way too much time trying to summarize.
Follow the lendleapp twitterfeed to keep up with the kerfuffle.
Filed under: in the news