Omakase, Amazon.com
Amazon.com has a new product out for their Affiliate Program. It seems to intend to compte with Adwords, as it precludes the use of Adwords on the same page.
We were working on a client’s website (petconnection.com) which uses Amazon’s affiliate program to sell pet-related books. The new feature went live during development, and the name was intriguing right off the bat: “Omakase”.
“I know what that is”, I thought, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It sounded Japanese, maybe it’s a martial arts term. Wikipedia to the rescue!
Translated, omakase means “I leave it to your discresion”, literally “entrusting” the sushi-sama to choose the dish, preparation, and price. At some restaurants, the omakase dish will be a multi-course dinner, and is often mentioned on the menu specifically.
As far as etymology, a little bit of googling brought me to this thread on E-Budo.com, which is a good place for perspective on Japanese culture from generally non-japanese individuals with significant and strong knowledge of Japan. (more…)
