Amazon’s line of Kindle readers are undoubtedly popular among consumers this holiday season, but it’s difficult to determine exactly how many have sold.

Today the company released new information about Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales data that vaguely indicate that Kindles are selling well — without actually stating any hard sales numbers.

For instance, Amazon stated that Cyber Monday was “the biggest day ever for Kindle sales worldwide” and “Kindle Fire HD is the most gifted and most wished for product on Amazon worldwide since launch.” (See the full list of “milestones” below.)

It’s really hard to tell whether Amazon is actually breaking sales records with its refreshed line of Kindles, or if the company is once again playing cheerleader for its own products as a way to avoid disclosing possibly lackluster results. Unlike last year, Amazon doesn’t have the benefit of selling its Kindle devices inside two of the largest physical retailers, Walmart and Target.

Amazon was a little more forthcoming with sales data last holiday season, and released enough data that suggested it sold about 5 million Kindle Fires. Yet overall, Amazon has been notoriously vague about its Kindle sales.

It’ll be interesting to see how shareholders will react if Amazon once again decides to stay silent about Kindle sales (broken down by tablets and e-readers), digital sales, and digital sales through Kindle devices.

Amazon’s Kindle “milestones”:

• Cyber Monday 2012 was the biggest day ever for Kindle sales worldwide.
• The top 4 spots on the worldwide Amazon best sellers list since launch nearly three months ago are Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fires.
• To celebrate Cyber Monday, Amazon.com offered a special deal—just $129 for the Kindle Fire. Customers flocked to the deal, making this the biggest Cyber Monday deal ever for Amazon.com.
• Kindle Fire HD is the most gifted and most wished for product on Amazon worldwide since launch.
• 9 out of the top 10 best-selling products on Amazon worldwide since 9/6 are Kindles, Kindle accessories and digital content.

Photo by Jennifer Van Grove/VentureBeat

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos was named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year today for his part in changing both the bookstore and the book itself.

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and has since redefined what a bookstore is. Most recently he introduced a 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet that competes directly with Apple’s iPad Mini and is seemingly very bullish on the e-reader market. As opposed to his competitors, Bezos often pushes the idea that Amazon won’t make money off of its hardware, but rather, Amazon will make money off of the content that brings those tablets alive.

Fortune chooses the businessperson of the year by looking at the financial standing of the candidate’s company, stock performance, and market value. It also looks at the person’s leadership, how they “gracefully steer a very large organization,” if they’re risky, if they’re strategic. Lastly, it looks at whether the company itself has “cultural significance,” perhaps has maybe changed the way we do something. In Amazon’s case, this is the overhaul of the book market.

Specifically, Fortune factored in Bezos’ management style, which includes asking his employees to submit new ideas through a six-page written narrative. He told Fortune in order to write a memo like this, you have to have a clear head, an understanding of what you’re writing. Bezos also stresses the focus on the consumer. He says his competition spends time in the shower thinking about overcoming their biggest adversaries, while his employees spend that time thinking about better products for their customers.

Runners-up include Apple CEO Tim Cook, eBay CEO John Donahoe, and Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon.

Other tech favorites on the broader list of 50 best businesspeople of the year include Google’s Larry Page, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, and Square’s Jack Dorsey. Fortune says Dorsey made it to the list because of metrics looking at leadership and cultural disruption.

Jeff Bezos image via jurvetson/Flickr

Amazon has introduced a new service called Whispercast that will help organizations take better control of content on large numbers of Kindles, the company announced today.

Ideally, Whispercast will give schools and other organizations a single touch point for buying and distributing e-books, PDFs, and more to students and employees with Kindles. Whispercast also works with the Kindle apps for iOS, Android, PCs, and Macs.

“Hundreds of thousands of students around the world are already reading on Kindle,” Amazon Kindle VP Dave Limp said in a statement. “Today, we are announcing Whispercast, a free, scalable solution for school and business administrators to centrally manage thousands of Kindles and wirelessly distribute Kindle books as well as their own documents to their users. Organizations can also design bring-your-own-device programs at school or work using personally-owned Kindles, Kindle Fires, and other tablets using the free Kindle reading applications for receiving content.”

Here’s Amazon’s list of features for Whispercast:

• Easily manage fleets of Kindles

With Whispercast, administrators can register and assign users to all of their organizations’ Kindle devices at once, creating personalized Kindle experiences for each student or employee.

• Support for “bring your own device”

With support for personal devices, organizations can invite employees, students, customers and partners to receive content from the organization on their Kindles.

• Create user groups

Whispercast gives administrators the ability to assign users into one or more groups, such as specific class, grade level or corporate department. User groups make it easier to purchase and distribute content for each group’s unique needs.

• Control device settings, such as Wi-Fi and password protection

Schools and businesses can configure device settings across all their Kindles, including configuring wireless connectivity to private networks for a simple and secure user experience as well as restricting web access and purchases.

• Wirelessly distribute Kindle books, documents and applications

Whispercast makes it easy for organizations to centrally distribute Kindle books as well as documents on an individual basis. In the coming months, Whispercast administrators will be able to purchase and send Kindle Fire applications. Additionally, during the purchase process organizations will be able to select which content should be assigned to specific user groups they have created.

• Support for free Kindle reading apps on iOS, Android, and other devices

Schools and businesses can purchase and send Kindle books and distribute documents to devices using any of the free Kindle reading apps, including iPads, iPhones, Android phones and tablets, PCs and Macs.

• Support for centralized procurement

Organizations can efficiently purchase Kindle devices and content through a single payment method, including purchase orders, as well as Amazon gift cards or credit cards.

Take a look at the video below to see Whispercast in action in a school setting: