Amazon has been expanding its presence in Austin for a few years now, and the newest addition appears to be one of its new Amazon Books stores.
The new store, located in The Domain, is slated to open sometime in 2018, according to photos of the temporary facade at its future location and new job listings posted by the company.
Amazon already has 13 Amazon Books locations listed on its website, including two listed as "coming soon." The Austin location isn't on that page yet.
The emergence of physical book stores is sure to anger some of the book store owners and customers who watched as Amazon disrupted long-standing businesses with its easy online shopping and helped drive many of those stores out of business.
Amazon Books, however, differs somewhat from a traditional book store.
The company picks books based on ratings, pre-orders and other metrics. The books are stacked face out so people can see only the covers -- not just the titles. And, of course, the stores feature all of Amazon's popular devices, like the Echo and Kindle.
On one hand, offering books curated by algorithms and reviews might help people quickly find great reads. On the other hand, it largely takes away the discovery process found in other book stores and the unique nature of staff recommendations.
