Amazon announced last week that they were shutting down their Kindle forums and gravitating everyone to GoodReads and Amazon Spark. It looks like the company has started a new discussion forum for the Kindle, Echo, Fire, Fire TV and eBooks. The entire experience is more robust than the previous version and better organized. I think this was a good move for Amazon because it adds a singular destination for all of their consumer products.
Amazon normally has great communication, but this forum experience was an utter debacle. Initially they said they were retiring the Kindle forums and revising their Help Files. Due to the backlash of millions of forum users and hundreds of media websites, I think Amazon realized shutting down everything was not a viable solution.
The new forums have very little discussions right now, since it was just launched today. One of the things it has going for it, is that there are dedicated Amazon support staff that are posting messages and responding to customer concerns.
Update: Amazon released a statement to Good e-Reader regarding the new forums “At this time, the old Kindle Help Forum content is not available, but will be in the near future. In the meantime, we invite you to explore the new forums and get to know your community.”
What do you think about the new Amazon forums?
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
