These telecom giants reason that since they provide the lines (copper, fiber optic or cable) that supply internet connections to consumers, they should profit from the data that flows through them. Here’s how it would work: Websites that pay a fee would be allocated the most bandwidth and thus load quickly, whereas websites that can’t afford to pay the toll, or simply won’t pay the toll, get whatever bandwidth is left over (i.e. the slow lane).

As internet marketers, it antes up the question: Would you pay? If you’re a larger company with deep pockets, and can afford to, you’d once again gain a competitive advantage over smaller online business owners that can’t afford to pay.

For the online consumer this means higher priced goods as website owners won’t silently bear the extra costs.

I just hope that a two-tiered internet never becomes reality, if it ever does, hundreds of thousands of at home online business owners will suddenly find themselves looking for a J.O.B.

So far as anyone can tell, Amazon hasn’t put any promotion into it yet and the site (http://amapedia.amazon.com) seems to be a little lacking in design and character.

What’s the point of the site? To offer Amazon users reviews on products so they can make a more informed buying decision- or more importantly, ultimately buy more products Amazon. Amazon is currently describing Amapedia as the “next generation of Amazon.com’s Product Wiki feature.”

In theory it seems like a good idea and depending on how much it is used by Amazon users and how they plan on integrating it will their current review system it may very well become “the” place to go fro reliable reviews on the web and then again it may not.

Here’s some additional info I was able to dig up on the web:

O’Reilly Radar says Amapedia launched with 5,000 articles.

“It launched with approximately 800 internally created articles and 5000 articles that were ported over from the previous version. As you click-thru the site you will quickly realize just how empty it is and how many fact & category tags have not been filled in yet. Try playing with the random article functionality to take a spin through the site. The article pages are very nicely crafted. The tags are on the left. The article text and images take up the majority of the page.”

O’Reilly also points out that according to Amapedia’s Terms of Service Amazon owns all rights to Amapedia entries just like they do for the product reviews on the Amazon.com website but people can still use their own content elsewhere.

“If you do post or otherwise submit questions, answers feedback, or any other content, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant amapedia and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media.”