Amway adds Web site selling DVDs, CDs

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. multilevel-marketing giant Amway has started an online store called Fanista that blends Amazon.com and MySpace social networking into Amway's program.

The Web site -- initially selling DVDs and CDs, and later adding video games, digital downloads and books -- rewards customers who recruit others and get them to buy something, founder Daniel Adler said.

Members, who join for free, create and customize profiles in which they list favorite DVDs and CDs. They then invite friends to join.

"Regardless of what the big marketing campaign says is hot, regardless of what the big-name critic says is good, people make entertainment purchases based on the recommendations of people they encounter directly," Adler told The New York Times. "That is the only authentic voice."

Adler, 44 -- who formerly led the Creative Artists Agency's new-media division and was a Walt Disney Co. creative developer -- said Fanista (pronounced fa-NEE-sta) represented a new distribution system for the entertainment business.

Some Internet analysts say Fanista faces an uphill battle.

"I'm not completely sold on what they're trying to do," Jupiter Research online media Senior Analyst David Card told the Times.