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Amazon Not Closing All Its Support Forums

When I reported my scoop last week that Amazon was closing its support forums, it looked like Amazon was going to simply abandon its customers to go find support on social networks and third-party sites.

It turns out that is not the case. Ongoing discussions on MobileRead Forums have turned up an interesting detail: Amazon has recently launched a new support forum.

The Kindle Help forum, which is apparently an entirely different forum from the Kindle forum, is going to remain open.

We are always looking for new ways to make it easier for our customers to find answers to their Amazon product questions. Starting the morning of October 9th , Pacific Standard Time, we will be introducing an improved forum experience, with expanded digital and devices help forum categories. With this update, customers will now have more choices, the opportunity to post rich content (like photos and videos), and view and post from their mobile devices.

We look forward to your feedback on the new forums!

If you didn’t realize there were two similar forums on Amazon, you’re not alone. I didn’t know, and Amazon sure as heck made it impossible to find the forums.

Going by the dates on discussion threads,  the Kindle Help forum is brand spanking new. Amazon opened the new forum the middle of last month, and has spent the last few weeks working the bugs out.

Edit: Readers have corrected me on the point of when Amazon launched this forum. They say it is at least several years old.

So what we really have here is that Amazon launched a new forum platform, retired the old forum platform, and then screwed up the announcement explaining the changeover.

They’re not closing their support forums so much as replacing the old forum with a new one.

That’s what they should have told everyone, but did not, and that lead to chaos, panic, disorder, and blood raining from the skies.

What a mess – and also a surprise, given that Amazon is usually better at communicating.

image by rich701

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Comments


Confirmed: Amazon to Close its Support Forums on Friday | The Digital Reader October 9, 2017 um 10:46 am

[…] Update: Or not. What Amazon didn't tell us was that they recently opened a new support forum which is going to replace the […]


Tom S October 9, 2017 um 11:21 am

The Kindle Help Forum has been there for years. But again, not easy to find it.

Note that many products (including Kindles) have an ‘Ask a question’ section on the product page. It’s far better than the hard-to-discover forums and the Q&A form seems to work much better in terms of getting good information as opposed to ‘discussion’ which can often devolve unproductively. Vendors often monitor their listings and offer answers as well.

The discussion forums should not be missed.


BDR October 9, 2017 um 11:26 am

If you have a question about Kindle, there seem to be more than enough discussion groups on the internet that can help, Amazon-directed or not.

Google is your friend.


tired October 9, 2017 um 2:33 pm

"So what we really have here is that Amazon launched a new forum platform, retired the old forum platform, and then screwed up the announcement explaining the changeover."

No that is incorrect. The old platform was a series of forums on everything under the sun including but not limited to kindle.

I think there was a help forum before separate from the other forums.

For those two reasons I don’t consider this a changeover.


Barry E Marks October 9, 2017 um 2:47 pm

The Kindle Help forum has been there quite a while. I don’t know if it’s really a separate forum, meaning using different software, or not, but it’s flavor has always been different than the regular Kindle forum. It’s also been a lot more active. That’s probably why you thought it was new based on the dates. There’s a very fast scroll compared to most forums.

Another difference is that there aren’t many discussions on the help forum. It’s mostly just questions and answers. The regular Kindle forum had plenty of that but it also had ongoing discussions of books, authors, kindles, etc.

Barry


Amazon's Latest Crackdowns and Amazon Review Trolls October 22, 2017 um 1:30 pm

[…] Do note, the shutdown doesn’t include the Kboards or the Kindle Support Forum. […]


Tom S November 7, 2017 um 10:37 am

It looks like they have launched a new site: amazonforum.com


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