Have you actually looked at all the junk on an Amazon.com book page recently?

It is seriously crowded with a bunch of junk that means nothing. Taking a book from the top of my wishlist, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (amazon.com), I see far too much junk on the book's page at Amazon.

There are sections on this page for:

• Better Together: where Amazon tries to sell you a related title too. OK, this is fine (though note, the price is simple addition of both books, it isn't discounted for buying both!)
• Customers who bought this item also bought: OK, I can see this too. Maybe.
• Editorial Reviews: Yep, this is fine.
• Product Details: Yep, this is fine too — though I'd like it further up the page, like right after the price/picture/etc.

Next comes the cruft:

• Help others find this item: What? Why is this here?
• Tag this product: Again ... what the ?!
• Are you the publisher or author? Learn how Amazon can help you make this book an eBook: This is nothing but spam. I wonder how often this actually gets a bite ... and then how often the resultant 'eBook' (blast, I hate that camel-casing stuff!) is actually purchased. I know it isn't worth my while. How many people does this annoy, on every page?!
• Rate this item to improve your recommendations: Maybe I can see this ... but how much sewage does one wade through to get here?
• Customer Discussions: How many books (besides Harry Potter) actually have discussions? Again, this is cruft. I'm buying books, not socializing with nameless, faceless know-it-alls.
• Your Recently Viewed Items: Too far down the page to be worthwhile.
• Look for similar items by category: Helpful ... but it should be much higher up the page.
• Look for similar items by subject: Hmmmmmm ... what, according to Amazon.com, is the difference between a 'category' and a 'subject' ? This is too much stuff.
• After this come a bunch of ads, followed by a feedback link.
• Then, at the bottom of the page ... a Your Recent History page. Didn't they just tell me my Recently Viewed Items a few items ago? So why is this here?
• After that come the Sponsored Links. Wow, glad those are there.

Now I just might be missing it, but I sure would like to customize my Amazon.com viewing experience so that most of that craptastic crud is never seen, and I can just see information about the book I'm interested in purchasing.

Because my sample page is a book yet to be published, it doesn't have the "Inside This Book" block. So check out The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (amazon.com) to see an example. This is where textual ephemera like 'statistically improbable phrases' and 'captialized phrases' along with a concordance and text statistics are given. OK, so this is cool and at least somewhat relevant (it is info about the book I'm browsing) so I can let this one lie.

Also — did anyone else notice the inconsistent headline casing for page section titles? Sometimes they're all-capped ("Your Recently Viewed Items") and sometimes not ("Look for similar items by category"). What's that all about? Is there no house style for these sorts of things?

Ok, rant over. But I would love it if Amazon would trim the cruft off of their book pages.

These pages need some serious pruning.