v.
To take away business from a more established rival by being the first to build an online presence.
Example Citation:
Although [Amazon.com CEO Jeff] Bezos emphasizes his obsession with the customer and plays down his concern with rivals, the way he toyed with Barnes & Noble was so instructive that any established brand getting bushwhacked by an Internet upstart is now referred to as "getting Amazoned.
—Peter de Jonge, "Epic of Amazon.com a Product of Imagination," Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1999
Earliest Citation:
The biggest fear that packaged goods companies have is that they are going to get Amazoned. If you look at what Richard Branson is doing with Virgin Cola, he should be all over the Net because he can Trojan Horse his way into the mind of the consumer.
—Gene De Rose, quoted in R. Sukumar, "Gene De Rose: The Net Is About Brand Action Marketing," Business Today, October 29, 1998
Notes:
This new verb comes from e-commerce pioneer Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/, which currently (as of May, 1999) owns 75% of the online book-buying market, while the Web arm of book retailing giant Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ owns only 15%.
Related Words:
Categories:
New words. 2013.