Procrastination is a terrible thing. I've been meaning to write about this for a couple months now but never got around to it.
One of the neat features TypePad has is TypeLists. These allow for easy management of sidebar content including blogrolls and media content from Amazon. Rather than directly editing a template to put code for these items on your blog, you manage the content in the TypePad interface.
Two plugins bring Movable Type closer to this: MT-Blogroll and Media Manager (both for MT 3.2 currently). MT-Blogroll, as the name suggets, allows you to manage your blogrolls or sidebar links generally. You can create categories for your links to better organize them. The interface is much like if you had created a links blog in MT, but customized for just adding links.
Media Manager allows you to search Amazon within its interface, where you can view thumbnails and other information, and then add these items to your collection to display on your weblog. This is a great way to display a list of books or other items from Amazon that you want your visitors to check out.