New from Amazon: Kindle Ubiquity

Amazon’s Kindle took another step toward e-book platform ubiquity this morning with the launch of Kindle for the Web–a browser-based version of the popular e-reader. The service extends KIndle’s “Read the first chapter free” offer to the Web itself, providing book previews that can be read in-browser and shared via embed codes or services like Facebook and Twitter.

It’s a handy viral marketing tool for authors and their fans, who can earn referral fees from Amazon (AMZN) when customers complete book purchases using the links on their Web sites. But more than that it’s an interesting evolution of the Kindle platform, particularly if Kindle for the Web develops from discovery tool to full-text e-reader as it moves out of beta.