The announcement today that Amazon is getting into bed with Twitter to make it even easier for the public to shop on the go fills me with dread.

Shopping used to be a pleasurable experience, hotly anticipated with days of planning going into the where, when and how to manage the time on the high street. Well, it was like that for me at least.

Today you think, “maybe I need a new whatever”, get out your smartphone, start researching, make your choice and click; instant gratification (or maybe gratification five days later). With this move you won’t even have to think. When you see an Amazon link in your twitter feed to a product you wouldn’t mind buying, simply use the hash #AmazonBasket to reserve to your basket and log on to pay later.

“No more switching apps, typing passwords, or trying to remember items you saw on Twitter,” Amazon said in a video it posted about this move.

With Twitter’s revenues suffering a fall this is seen as one-way for it to increase its revenue stream but will it endear it to its users? I find Amazon’s ideas on what I would like to purchase very strange. Why does it think that if I purchased a toaster five days ago I am going to want to buy another one? The constant stream of emails offering me items I have already bought in the past few months seems illogical to me.

But then, what has ever been logical about shopping? We go out with a plan of what we want and never find it and then, when we have no plans to buy anything, we see just what we want.

So maybe, this is a good move and we will see and buy more and more things that we never really knew we needed.

photo credit: avlxyz