Fitted with all
the bells and whistles

Last Friday Amazon launched the beta version of e-commerce site Windowshop.com, which allows users to not only window-shop but also sample — and actually purchase — books, movies, music and videogames, according to the Amazon Web Services blog (via Retailer Daily).

With a keyboard or mouse, users can navigate an interface offering best-sellers and new releases of various products proffered by the online retail giant. Content available for window-shopping is refreshed each Tuesday.

"You can scroll through the content and zoom in and out on product previews in a style that very much reminds of how the Cooliris browser plugin works," writes Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb.

Amazon.com itself was recently Cooliris-enabled with an Amazon category below the Cooliris browser's Discover/Shopping feature, which accesses Amazon product segments unavailable Windowshop, such as Electronics and the Kindle Store, according to Perez.

"The Cooliris wall also has a nifty 3D effect when scrolled, where the Windowshop.com wall stays very much 2D," she pointed out.

Windowshop is powered by the platform-agnostic Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) — as is Zoomii, an interface similar to Windowshop but more of a virtual bookshelf-browsing utility, according to CNET's Josh Lowensohn. Zoomii, a one-man operation, was launched some four months ago.

"I can't say I'm entirely convinced most people are going to use this as opposed to the standard Amazon site when it comes time to find things. It's missing the all-important search, making it more of a content showcase than a replacement for the popular shopping site," Lowensohn writes.

"However, this new look paves the way for use on set-top boxes and other web-enabled home entertainment devices like the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii."

Visual browsing has become popular in 2008, Perez writes, citing ManagedQ's semantic Google-based search, Photo Stream's visual newsroom, and search engines like Viewzi and SearchMe.

Friday was a fortuitous day for Amazon, points out Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes.com: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos appeared on Oprah’s TV show and received her endorsement for Amazon's Kindle reading device.