Amazon makes it easier to give away e-books

With the holiday shopping season about to kick into high gear, Amazon (AMZN) today announced something it probably should have done years ago. You can now send real e-books as gifts to others, whether they own a Kindle or not.

“We’re excited to make it easier than ever for our customers to gift their favorite Kindle book to a friend or family member,” Amazon Vice President Russ Grandinetti said in a statement. “We’re making this feature available in time for the holidays to give everyone – not just Kindle owners – an easy, stress-free way to shop for the holidays.”

As it turns out, giving Kindle books as a gift is actually quite easy:

Choose a book from the Kindle Store, select “Give as a Gift,” and send it to anyone with an email address. Recipients will then be notified that a gifted eBook is waiting for them.

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Amazon’s move came just days after e-reader rival Kobo announced that its customers would be able to give e-books as gifts. Although the Canadian company said the feature would not be available until early December, Amazon has already rolled out the gift option.

Such quick and decisive steps are a trademark of Amazon: this week, the company also announced that it would enter the film business and that it had acquired the old catalog of Toby Press, a small publisher of fiction and translations.

This two-pronged approach of meeting the changing needs of its customers on the one hand and expanding into the media and publishing world on the other hand puts Amazon in a very strong position for 2011. Revenues and profits increased in 2010, and sales of Kindle devices and e-books played a large part in this.

Nevertheless, the infrastructure and production costs associated with the e-book provider’s dominant position, as well as Amazon’s increased foray into the media market, threaten to undermine the company’s core business: selling products, and lots of them.

Right now, Amazon seems to want to be everything to all kinds of customers and partners. The online giant has the financial strength to keep it that way for now, but one misstep — such as a failed major acquisition or a hefty tax bill — could send its fortunes in the wrong direction.