Over the past 14 years, Amazon.com has mastered the art of getting physical copies of books, music and movies to customers through the mail. Now it is trying to add to its repertoire in a rush.

The market for entertainment and data is inexorably going digital. One day, most music, movies and perhaps even words will be sent as bits by the Net instead of in bulky boxes. More than half of the company’s $15 billion in sales last year came from CDs, DVDs and books, shipped from Amazon’s 30 cavernous distribution centers around the world.

Last week, in what could be an omen of that shift, Apple proclaimed that its iTunes store had surpassed Wal-Mart Stores to become the No. 1 source of music sales in the United States. Amazon, which still sells mostly CDs, was the No. 3 seller last year but has since lost market share and is now tied with Target for fourth place.

“Digital is where the growth in music is, and other industries are likely to follow,” said Bill Rosenblatt, chief executive of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, a consulting company in New York. “Amazon needs to position itself to capture that.”

whether there were a Committee for the Preservation of Amazon.com, it would include Steven Kessel, Bill Carr and Ian Freed. Kessel oversees digital efforts for the company. Carr is in charge of the Amazon MP3 digital music store and its Amazon Unbox video download service. Freed oversees the company’s e-book-reading device, the Kindle.

In an interview, they emphasized the importance of the company’s new online offerings.

“We wake up every day thinking about digital,” said Kessel, senior vice president for worldwide digital media, who reports to Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder. “Jeff once said he couldn’t imagine anything more crucial than reinventing the book. I…

Orginal post by Top Tech News