Google Play - 25 Cent Intro Specials

Google is merging their Books, Music, Movies and Appstore into a single Google Play website (and renaming the Android Marketplace app). Your old content will transition to the new site, for those who already have apps and books, so nothing should be lost. To promote the new site, Google is running a 25 cent special in each section and it looks like Amazon is matching them (at least, it is right now). These are the current specials I see active:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel ($0.25 Kindle; Google), by Jonathan Safran Foer

Book Description
Jonathan Safran Foer follows his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, with an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting story about New York City in the period following September 11.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close recasts recent history through the eyes of Oskar Schell, an unusually intelligent nine-year-old on an urgent quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center. This unlikely adventure takes Oskar through every city borough and into contact with survivors of all sorts, and it's his irrepressible voice—one that few writers could conceive as imaginatively as Foer does—that transforms the tragedy of circumstance into an exhilarating tribute to love.

Where's My Water? ($0.25 Amazon; Google), by Disney

Book Description
Now test your skills with "Cranky's Story"!

Cranky is the toughest alligator around and he has worked up an appetite from sabotaging Swampy's water supply. He eats anything, especially all the rotting and disgusting junk found in the dumps and sewers. Cranky will not eat vegetables however, and now his food is covered with vegetable-like algae. Use the dirty purple water to clean off Cranky's plate so he can eat!

• Enjoy five of these new puzzles for free

• Purchase the Cranky's Story in-app item to unlock more than 50 super-challenging puzzles, including Cranky's Challenge, and enjoy a completely new way to play--Cranky's Challenge is a game within a game: four unique puzzle packs with 16 special levels for the most-skilled puzzle solvers

• Swampy's stories will continue to be updated for free

Please note: The ability to write to external storage is not enabled in this version. Swampy will get his ducks in a row and enable this permission in the next update. In the mean time please send any questions to Disney's Customer Care service accessible via the Where's My Water Facebook page.

Have you "Tri-Ducked" the game yet and completed all the bonus levels?

Puncture ($3.99 Amazon; $0.25 Google), Starring Chris Evans, Vinessa Shaw, Michael Biehn and Marshall Bell

Book Description
An attorney fighting a corrupt system is battling his own demons as he tries to do right by others in this drama based on a true story. Vicky (Vinessa Shaw) is a nurse at a hospital in Houston whose life takes an unexpected turn when she accidentally jabs herself with a used syringe. The needle had been used on a patient who was HIV-positive, and Vicky contracts AIDS. Jeffrey Danfort (Marshall Bell) is a close friend of Vicky's who designs medical equipment, and he's inspired to invent a syringe with a safety point that would prevent such mistakes. However, as Jeffrey tries to sell his new invention to pharmaceutical manufacturers, he discovers how much they're governed by corruption and insider dealings. Jeffrey decides to take on the dishonest firms with a lawsuit, and he secures the services of Weiss & Danziger, a small law office eager for any kind of business. But while Paul Danziger (Mark Kassen) needs the work to support his wife and children, Mike Weiss (Chris Evans) is more concerned with supporting his cocaine habit, which is spiraling out of control. Even though Mike sees the case as a chance to prove himself, his hunger for drugs is a constant obstacle. Puncture received its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.

Now That's What I Call Music! 41 ($0.25 Amazon; Google), by various (EMD).

Book Description
The 41st volume of Now That's What I Call Music! delivers a variety of pop radio hits and, after nearly 30 years of compilations, continues to showcase the music of the times. The hit-makers are all here, from LMFAO, Gym Class Heroes and Coldplay, to Adele, Katy Perry, Jessie J and Lady Gaga, while T-Pain, Pitbull, and rapper J. Cole add a hip-hop edge. Throughout the 20 songs featured, the formula and momentum never waver. This edition also includes "Now What's Next," four bonus tracks from up-and-comers Sammy Adams, Hunter Hayes, Susan Justice and The Wanted. – Laura Checkoway, Google Music

Ten Free Books for Kobo Vox

I'm still awaiting the arrival of my Kobo Vox, which was supposed to have arrived earlier and then was delayed in shipping until Nov 7 (hey, it's two days after that! where's my reader?). So, I've been anticipating it's arrival a bit, as I'd like to get a few days with it before the Kindle Fire arrives. I was poking around on the Kobo site today and found a section of books that are marked as Just for Kobo Vox. As usual, sorting by price at Kobo simply removes all the free books from a search, but by checking every single page, I've uncovered 10 titles that you can grab for free, including one that actually works on other Kobo readers (and can be downloaded as an EPUB). Most of these are comics and one even comes in several different languages.

Desserts: Sweet Dreams, by Jean Paré

Book Description
A bounty of truffles, fudge, toffee and more await with this fun collection of recipes for sweet treats, all carefully selected from the Company's Coming collection and displayed in beautiful colour photographs.

Essential Europe Promotional Guide, by Lonely Planet

Book Description
Planning a trip to Europe? Know before you go! Download a free copy of Lonely Planet's Europe Essentials and receive helpful tips on packing and planning, etiquette advice, transportation information, themed itineraries, and much more. It's the perfect complement to Lonely Planet's guidebooks and a great starting point to a dream vacation.

TRUE GRIT - MEAN BUSINESS, by Paramount Pictures, actually can be downloaded in 13 different languages.

Book Description
Five U.S. Marshals and a wagon-load of prisoners... A boy appears, with news of a bloody double-murder... Two of the marshals ride out to investigate... TRUE GRIT: MEAN BUSINESS is a free 24-page comic adapted from the novel TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis, now a major motion picture by the Coen Brothers. Inspired by the dime novels that first brought fame to the heroes and villains of the old American west, it is available to view in seven languages using a variety of different comic and ebook viewers.

There's no description for the comics/graphic novels, so I'm just going to list them here - if you have a Vox coming (or think you'll pick one up later), be sure to grab them while they are free.

• ARTIFACTS #0, by Ron Marz, Stjepan Sejic, Troy Peteri, Phil Smith
• ARTIFACTS #1, by Ron Marz Michael Broussard Rick Basaldua Sal Regla Sunny Gho Troy Peteri Filip Sablik Phil Smith Eric Basaldua Nelson Blake II Sheldon Mitchell Kenneth Rocafort Marc Silvestri
• FRESHMEN Vol 1 #1, by Hugh Sterbakov
• HUNTER KILLER #0 , by Mark Waid
• IMPALER Vol 1 #1, by William Harms
• MADAME MIRAGE #1, by Paul Dini
• WITCHBLADE #1, by Christina Z, David Wohl, Marc Silvestr, Brian Haberlin, Ron Marz

$5 Instant Video Credit at Amazon

Amazon is giving away another $5 Instant Video credit to anyone with a Twitter account. All you have to do is click the banner above, then click the big yellow Tweet and Get $5 button - the prompts will lead you thru the rest of the process, including linking your twitter account with your Amazon account. The credit applies to your account instantly (but will expire on October 31, 2011 if not used).

Note that Twitter is currently overwhelmed, it appears, so if you get an error message, just refresh the offer page at Amazon and try again. It took two tries with mine. Once you get a green success message on the screen, you can click thru to any Instant Video item and use the "View Balance" link at the bottom of the big black "box" on screen (right next to "redeem a gift card..").

Fine Print: Offer good from August 29, 2011, 10:00 AM PST to September 2, 2011, 11:59 PM PST, for those in the US only. Other restrictions may apply (see offer for details).

Free Tribeca Films Movie Rental

Amazon and American Express have teamed up to give everyone a free credit to watch one of the 2011 Tribeca Films, such as The High Cost of Living, for free (as an Amazon Instant Video). You can also use the $6 credit to watch two of the movies from past years (which rent for $2.99 instead of $5.99). The credit can only be used on films on the Tribeca Films page (it's not a general Instant Video credit), expires on May 31 if you haven't used it by then and is currently limited to US customers (physical or billing address or US credit card).

To get the $6 movie credit, click HERE and follow the directions. You'll have to connect your Amazon and Twitter accounts (you can create one just for this, if you want), then follow Amazon and American Express, then tweet a specific message on your account. Sounds complicated, but they have a button you click on the page and all you have to do is confirm access (at that point, you can log in to your twitter account or switch accounts).

Here are a few more details:

• Although the price shown on the "Rent" button will not change, your credit will automatically be applied to your purchase.
• After your purchase, you can confirm that the credit was applied by checking your order confirmation, which will be sent to you by e-mail.
• To receive this offer, you must click the button above to follow Amazon Instant Video and American Express on Twitter and automatically re-tweet the above message between April 20, 2011, at 12:00 AM PST and May 1, 2011, at 11:59 PM PST.
• Offer limited to one promotional credit per Amazon.com customer.

Free Instant Video Streaming with Amazon Prime

Everyone with a paid Amazon Prime Membership now has access to Unlimited Free Streaming Videos with Amazon Prime. If you are a Student or Amazon Mom member, you have to upgrade to the paid membership to get this benefit (but when you do, you can share with it 4 other members of your family, which means students can share the cost with their parents, in most cases). I love Netflix and we have a plan that allows us one DVD at a time, plus streaming, but if you are going to get a streaming only account, you'll pay a lot less signing up with Amazon. Netflix streaming only is $7.99/month or $95.88 per year (plus taxes, in some states), so you'll save nearly $20 to start with, plus get all the added benefits of a prime membership.

Benefits of Amazon Prime

• Unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping
• No minimum order size
• One-Day shipping for $3.99/item
• Unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows at no additional cost

After your free trial, Amazon Prime is just $79/year

Update: As noted by several readers, only the primary person on the Prime account gets access to free streaming videos. You would need to log in as that person to get access to the free videos (so, not something you would share lightly, as that person could order on your Amazon account). Still, it's a better deal than the same service from Netflix, but the two are different in selection and hardware supported. For example, no Wii or Playstation for Amazon, at least so far, and no Ipad support, which are the three I've used with Netflix.

Harry Potter Sale

Today's Gold Box deal has a boxed set of Harry Potter Years 1-6 at a huge discount. The Blu-Ray Set is $39.99, while the Harry Potter Years 1-6 at a huge discount. The DVD Set is $23.99. About what you would have paid for just one of the included discs, not too long ago. Both also come with a bonus $5 to spend on Video on Demand, which you can use for rentals or purchases. If you don't have the full set or have been waiting to upgrade to Blu-Ray, this is definitely the time to do so. If you are just missing one or two of the set, though, check out the Harry Potter DVDs list, as it appears the Blu-Rays selling there for $10 each and the regular DVD's are marked down to about $9. Then again, some special editions, such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Ultimate Edition) [Blu-ray] are $34 each, so you do have to be a bit selective if you don't get the set on today's sale.

Rescue Me - $14.99 per Season

Amazon's Gold Box Deal of the Day has every season of Dennis Leary's Rescue Me for $14.99 today (and today only), which is less than the price of Video on Demand (and I don't know how many days it would take me to download all of these, as our bandwidth isn't high enough to watch them online without downloading first. I'll admit I started skipping episodes in Season 4, but now that the fifth Season is out on DVD, I have to get caught up. You can buy any or all of the seasons at this price (and it looks like as many copies as you want, as well, in case you want to buy them for gifts). Here are the links for the individual seasons:

• Season One
• Season Two
• Season Three
• Season Four
• Season Five

I'm even tempted to buy Season Six on Video on Demand, as the price is currently down to $15.99, which is below what Amazon wants for the previous seasons (although this one does appear to be fairly short, with only ten episodes).

11 James Bond Movies on Blu-Ray for $99.99

Just saw this deal on the James Bond (11-Movie Collection) [Blu-ray], which regularly sells for $269.99. If you enter the code AMZNBOND during checkout, you get the collection for $99.99, which is $200 off list. To get the deal, you can't use the 1-Click feature. Instead, add the item to your cart, then click on Proceed to Checkout. Look for the box underneath the text Have any gift cards, gift certificates or promotional claim codes and click on Apply. Check the that the Order Total is $99.99 before clicking on Place Your Order.

This deal is only valid today, but that gives you until 3:00 AM EST (or midnight in Amazonland) to take advantage of it.

Description
This ultimate collection includes: Die Another Day, Dr. No, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, License to Kill, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, The World Is Not Enough, and Thunderball.

As an added bonus, Amazon will also give you a $4 credit for Amazon Video On Demand after you order your item. Limited to one promotional credit per customer; valid for "eligible" movies and TV shows.

Free Book (Sony) - Dear John Screenplay

Based upon the novel Dear John ($4.39 Kindle), by Nicholas Sparks, the Dear John Screenplay, by Jamie Linden, is available for free in the Sony bookstore. Actually, the novel is a bargain price in the Kindle store (it's $9.99 for Sony), so you might even want to pick up both.

Book Description
An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

This one isn't showing up on the Bargain Priced page in the Sony Store. So, once you are in the eBook Store in the reader software, either search for it by name or ISBN number: 9781102067665.