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Why did Amazon buy KindleVine.com, is a pre-release buzz site on the way?

Kindle Vine

There’s no question that Amazon owns a lot of domain names.  This past week the company purchased several hundred new names, including a group of more than 500 names, after announcing the Kindle Fire and Amazon Silk.

While large quantity purchases are usually part of a company’s intellectual property strategy in order to protect their brand, it’s easier to speculate on the individual purchases such as KindleVine.com, which Amazon acquired this week from its owner in Canada.

With the announcement of the Kindle Fire, one can only imagine the slew of products, services and peripherals Amazon will soon offer, possibly including:  Kindle Vine. 

Amazon already runs a program called “Amazon Vine” that invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help customers make informed purchase decisions.

Could an entirely separate invitation-only program run by Amazon be set up for Kindles?

The domain name exchanged hands at the end of September, and now the registrant shows Amazon as the owner.  Previously, KindleVine.com was a web site that served up eBay listings involving Amazon’s Kindle device.

Here’s a look at the Whois record.

Registrant:
   Amazon Technologies, Inc.
   P.O. Box 8102
   Reno, Nevada 89507
   United States

   Domain Name: KINDLEVINE.COM
      Created on: 25-Apr-08
      Expires on: 25-Apr-12
      Last Updated on: 29-Sep-11

   Administrative Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon 
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS-1.AMAZON.COM
      NS-2.AMAZON.COM
      NS-3.AMAZON.COM