The End Of The Amazon Era 236
What do all these diverse products have in common? If you guessed nothing, you win a free Pokemon Pileup, Amazon.Toys.com's "cunning critter" of the day on Tuesday, a day on which Amazon gave a perfunctory nod to Alice Hoffman's new novel "Local Girls" but was much more excited about (and gave more space to) what it called "Aural Fixation: Superb audio performance and fine-quality construction put the Harman Kardon FL8550 five-disc CD changer on the shortlist of stellar CD players under $1,000!"
Doesn't the hipper-than-life-itself Jeff Bezos know that books, toasters and Disney marketing tie-ins don't really work together? That they are distinctly different businesses, with different identities catering to different audiences? Bezos has tossed away his biggest advantage, the sense right or wrong that he was creating a different kind of company with something resembling an ethical sensibility.
He was only kidding. (Don't forget to link to drugstore.com on Amazon's home page for some aspirin, in case this column or those CDs give you a headache, in which case your geek buddies can send you a "Friendship" or "Love" E-card from Amazon's "E-Card" section).
Amazon was always as much mythical as real, as much hype as numbers. It always said more about the inadequate way we perceive and report on technologies like the Net than about books. Few companies have ever attracted more interest and publicity and made less money. Amazon's whiz-bang software - with its recommendation programs and one-click shopping - made Net book-buying a pleasure to thousands of people for the first time. And Bezos's public relations skills were as good as anyone's on the Web. He persuaded investors, business journalists and users that Amazon was a quasi-hip, rebellious alternative to the big bad chain stores.
Guess what? Amazon is now a lot worse than they are.
But that's over. Its distinct identity squandered, Amazon is truly a millenial corporation now. It does at least five things other companies and sites - eBay, MP3, Toys R Us, Fatbrain.com, BN.com - have done first or do better, and it's doing all of them at a loss. What a formula. And a cautionary tale. When it comes to doing digital business, hype is not only obnoxious, but nobody can really afford it anymore.
Reader reviews, you moron (Score:1)
This feedback is just as valuable for consumer goods as it is for books. Maybe you haven't learned the precious lesson you feel slashdot has to teach about interactivity: sites that have it are more useful.
Fatbrain doesn't offer reader feedback. Doesn't that make them dinosaurs in your buzzword-laden world?
Amazon is fine... (Score:1)
with their new options, they're not taking much
(if any) away either. I can still easily find the
books I'm looking for and the selection is excellent. Recommending fatbrain.com instead of amazon is a joke. I went there (on your recommendation) and searched for a few of my favorite authors plus Stephen King for a "popular" author and the selection was terrible. Amazon had 3 times more than fatbrain on average. I'd say that amazon is still on top of the game.
Tech books (Score:1)
bookpool [bookpool.com] has all the O'Reilly books heavily discounted. A far better deal than Amazon, and minus any of the hype.
I object to the way Amazon.com keeps an active database of my credit card info anyway. They should throw that stuff away when they're done processing an order. I made the mistake of ordering from them once, and now they have my credit info in a database online somewhere that it could probably be snatched. A few weeks ago I asked them to remove the info in an email message and they turned it into a quiz game (asking me to detail what I ordered on my last order). It should be as easy as possible to remove that info from their online database. However, it's probably in their interests to play games with the customer.
A better deal on books (Score:1)
best prices from a fellow /.'er (Score:1)
http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~bgannon/booksearch
a fellow
great results!!
The real world (Score:1)
Oh, did I forget to mention I don't live in the USA.
Geography, what a bitch
MTV: "Music? Try VH-1." (Score:1)
Here, let me explain. (Score:1)
Katz isn't just saying "blah blah amazon turned poopie, i'm superior blah blah," he's making a social critique of our consumer culture as a whole, and the ongoing reshaping of the internet as just another forum to BUY BUY BUY, much akin to the fate of those other fantastically shiny and new mediums, television and radio.
His point can certainly be argued and debated until the cows come home. But that wasn't done here -- we quickly degraded into sandbox-esque name calling.
I don't think the original post was flamebait. Pointless and self-apparent, perhaps, but the vast majority of the Linux Uber Alles and Libertarian rants I see here fall into the same catagory. But certainly no need for me to personally insult the author.
Alternatively, if you hate Katz that much, do what everyone else does and filter his ass out.
New law of e-commerce? (Score:2)
I don't get it. (Score:2)
It's a way to buy stuff. Period. Not hip. Never cool. I give them money, they send me the stuff I want -- only difference between Amazon and WalMart is, I don't have to walk further than the mailbox to get the stuff.
So Amazon has expanded the definition of the "stuff" they sell? Um... so? I buy books from Amazon because they get the books to me faster than barnesandnoble.com. I buy music from Amazon because they get the CDs to me faster than cdnow. I buy videos from Amazon because they get the VHS/DVD to me faster than reel.com (unless it's out of print; then reel.com is the way to go). It's about getting stuff to me quickly, not how the bloody web page looks.
If anything "broke" Amazon's previous business model, it's when they added the auctions -- because now you're not buying things from Amazon, you're buying things from other people *via* Amazon, which is different. I prefer eBay's auction to Amazon's, so I don't use Amazon for that. Simple. Nothing to preach about.
Rob, with all the new bucks rolling into
A bunch of online bookstores -- this time w/ URLs (Score:3)
Waterstone's http://www.waterstones.co.uk/ -- based in Britain (also physical; used to have a store in Boston that closed a few weeks ago)
Books.com http://www.books.com/scripts/default.exe -- internet only; very lage
Wordsworth http://www.wordsworth.com/ -- a wonderful Cambridge, MA bookstore; buy books online
Schoenhof's http://www.schoenhofs.com/ -- extensive foreign bookseller
jonkatz@well.com??? (Score:1)
jonkatz@well.com
at the end of al their emails. Blinded by their own hypocrisy sometimes.
Skip
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flifson@csdotuctdotacdotza
Why? (Score:1)
...phil
Re:Reader reviews, you moron (fatbrain has them) (Score:1)
Comments on Amazon (Score:4)
I did submit comments to other online booksellers and they were posted within 24 hours. I'll take my business to fatbrain from now on.
Re:Powell's is in Portland, Oregon (Score:1)
Powell's in Portland, U-Bookstore and Elliott Bay in Seattle.
Newly Revealed??? (Score:1)
Sorry, but way back before (or maybe it was right whe) they added CD's I remember an interview w/ Bezos where he stated that his eventual goal was TO BE an online Wal-Mart, just that books was the best place to start out
I normaly support you Jon, but you missed the make this time
Powell's is in Portland, Oregon (Score:1)
I go to Powell's Technical Books for all my geek reading needs. I prefer going to a physical store, so I can actually pick up and look at the merchandise.
--
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:1)
I think; that's just my perception of his clauses
As a long time Amazon customer.. (Score:1)
Amazon has given me some of the best customer service I've received *anywhere*. Fatbrain/computer-literacy have screwed up my orders before, have had poor turn-around times, and in general weren't very receptive to me as a customer.
On amazon, I've gotten turn-arounds in a matter of hours, I've never had a screw up, and any order modifications I've made were done with a simple request. I've gotten my regular post packages bumped up to UPS countless times, I've received thank you gifts from them, I can make money from them as an associate, and now I can buy CD's, toys and games from them.
Amazon's only screw up, imho, was their entry into the auction's market. I don't see the benefit in getting in here, given eBay's dominance. Perhaps Jeff Bezos will prove me wrong on this. I'm not holding my breath.
Their electronics section seems fine, though I think they're going to run into problems with providing detailed specs.. a quick search through the site reveals that some products don't come with complete specs, which is something I know I want to see.
In the end, Amazon is not an internet company. They're not a technology company either. They're a retailer. Their business model revolves around *ONE CONCEPT*: customer service.
Early investors in Amazon spotted this key element to Bezos' business plan, and jumped on it. Bezos has repeated the mantra in business magazines across the country: "We are not an internet company. We are in the business of making customer's lives easier. We are a customer service company."
If you don't buy the customer-service-as-business-model line, then you shouldn't invest in Amazon.
Umm... (Score:1)
That's a new one.
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:1)
shameless plug (Score:1)
Old addage - if you don't like the shop then go somewhere else...vote with your feet.
Martin
Fatbrain.com (Score:2)
www.bookpool.com RULEZ (Score:1)
They don't have absolutely everything like Amazon, but they've had 95% of every technical book I've looked for.
The only other negative is that they don't usually have as many books in stock, usually around 50%. But they always seem to get them within about week.
I've ordered over a couple thousand dollars worth of books from them and have never had a problem. In the past, I would always go to Amazon to read the reviews and then order from BookPool. However, BookPool has just recently added the same kind of review mechanism that Amazon has.
After a serious plug like this I should probably tell you that I have no affiliation with BookPool and know absolutely nothing about them other than what I've seen on their website.
If somebody knows of a better place to get technical books, please tell me about it.
- Michael Zauzig
One word: books.com (Score:1)
They have everything, and they don't give me a bunch of grief like crapazon.
Re:Why I never shop on Amazon again (Score:1)
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:1)
Amazon has been always about hype and I wouldn't be surprised that if they don't make money within another 2 years there will be no Amazon.com. And I think the lesson is less about the company practices and more about the initial hype and how the company sold it's hippness - now they have to try and recoup via other products (which are now the hype not the books).
Personally, it doesn't matter what they do but I can't stand to get on their site because of all the other products. It's easier to just walk into Barnes and Noble find the book I want - check BarnesandNoble.com to see if it's priced cheaper than the store and order it there.
At least I can then get a decent latte to go and it only took 15 minutes. Not the 35 minutes on Amazon.com!
Re:Really, Jon, what did you _expect_ them to do? (Score:1)
In my case, it has nothing to do with classism. It has everything to do with the fact that big business (K-Mart, Walmart, etc) are large, monolithic, oppressive machines which destroy communities and dissolve American culture.
--
Michael Chisari
dominion@beyondtheweb.com
Re:What the?!?? (Score:1)
I am not a consumer.
I am not a market segment.
I am a human being, thank you very much.
--
Michael Chisari
dominion@beyondtheweb.com
Books vs. Other Commodities (Score:2)
One point that hasn't been discussed is the difference between books and other commodities. I put books in a different category because they have an impact on the intellectual discourse of our culture. I think that it is important that midlist authors receive support and exposure. The old Amazon seemed like it would support that.
The early Amazon felt like a revolt against the cheesy mass-market booksellers because it was focused on tools for readers and an unlimited selection. It felt more like an small independant bookstore with a large catalog and powerful search and recommendation features. Now it seems that the original focus is lost and I am concerned that Amazon will sacrific editorial integrity and user experience for short term gain.
They have demonstrated this loss several times, first by accepting payment from publishers then by polluting the user experience with inline auction ads and now with electronic equipement noise.
Its the consumer's fault (Score:2)
For the most part net users just want to find a product for the lowest cost, and why shouldn't they? There is no personal touch. The store isn't in your home town... such concepts mean nothing on the Internet.
If your local bookstore started to put up neon signs all over their building advertising other products, you would think it tacky. It is also tacky for a web site, but because we have no sense of patronage on the net it is the last resort for net businesses.
Sad, but true. Blame amazon if you wish. Yeah, they are a sellout, but so are all the people who will purchase a product anywhere because the most important thing is how many dollars they retain in their wallet.
I suspect I'm among a few who try to purchase my books directly from the publisher. It is more expensive, but the publisher is very cogniscent of their image and they do one thing: sell and produce books.
Re:Fatbrain.com..but the name is lame! (Score:1)
Is Jon getting kick backs from Fatbrain? (Score:1)
I guess I never looked at Amazon with the same idealistic zeal that Jon Katz does. It's just
another online store, one that for the most part has treated me pretty well.
If and when their service starts to suck, then it's time to start buying elsewhere. Not because
they start selling toys. Personally, I like the idea....if I can get the same service from them on my Legos that I get on books, all the better for me!
Why don't you just ignore Katz instead? (Score:1)
Then why look for a different bookstore? Because Jon Katz says they aren't cool anymore? Puhlease!
As many folks have already mentioned, Amazon is a business, not a religion. If they take care of you and serve you well, then stick with 'em.
Re:i don't like FatBrain.com.. (Score:1)
I happen to know who their Marketing Director is, he used to work where I work, and he was/is a cocky bastard, so it's not surprising that their marketing comes off that way.
I'm sorry, so they sell more then books, so What? (Score:1)
Why I never shop on Amazon again (Score:1)
In March something I ordered Programming with Qt and Samba: Integrating Unix and Windows. I was in no hurry to get the book so I took something called surface mail (= the banana boat).
Failure 1: Samba: The book Integrating Unix and Windows was out of stock and was never reprinted.
Failure 2: April 20 - July 15 is way too long for me. (I actually ordered the book in March but it was out of stock then)
Failure 3: The swedish custom wanted to have more than half the price of the book.
So from now I will buy my books from bokus.com in Sweden. They are more expensive but you get it fast at least. And bokus don't have nearly as much titles of course.
So much for global economy.
bookarea for good prices (Score:1)
Re:Uncalled For (and now Off-topic) (Score:1)
2001 and Strangelove are blatant copies of the DVD titles previously available. (All but those two have a consistent title design, which would have been the collection's only production plus.)
While the director-intended formats are preserved (Kubrick shot full-frame and mono for everything after Clockwork Orange), the video quality is poor (The Shining looks like a worn VHS copy--I am not exaggerating) and there are few features worthy of note, and _no_ original features whatsoever.
Buying the collection as a whole affords no monetary savings or any other benefits. Pick and choose your favorite films if you must, but preferably just WAIT for a well-produced re-release. Warner Bros. raped our asses with this one, and they should be taught a boycott lesson.
--
Uncalled For (Score:3)
(* An extra copy of Ghostbusters rather than a Kubrick Collection, and now I wish I'd kept the extra and saved myself the agony of the shameful treatment given Kubrick's work in that over-priced under-produced set.)
Amazon has great prices, ships quickly and cheaply, and their user comments are usually (*) a valuable smart-buying tool. I look forward to using them to purchase a home theatre system and other non-media items.
(* The 5-star THiS iS thE MOST AWeSOmE MOVie EVER!!!! comments get annoying, especially when someone hasn't even seen the title for sale yet, but they're easily ignored. I browse comments and ignore the `average' rating.)
Amazon is an online merchant I've grown to trust through overwhelmingly good experiences, and I look forward to their expanded inventory.
--
Good technical book store. (Score:1)
Umm... Jon? (Score:2)
A. Amazon hasn't had a profitable quarter. YET.
B. Why do you keep expecting the best when all you are going to get is the worst in online retailing?
Really, Jon, what did you _expect_ them to do? (Score:2)
Amazon.com was not making a lot of money while it was a "hip" and "trendy" place to buy books. So it's trying to expand to make more money.
But guess what? YOU CAN STILL BUY BOOKS THERE.
Honestly. Why do you expect Amazon.com to stay a books-only store when they're not making money from it? Does that make any sense at all from any kind of perspective? By expanding without killing off their books area, you can still get what you want (books) and they have the opportunity to bring more people in.
And, by the way, let me take this opportunity to rail against people who take snipes at stores that are considered "common." Exactly what the !@#$% do you have against K-Mart? Oh, no, a store that sells inexpensive goods. Oh, no, a store where the working class goes to spend money. I can feel the property values dropping already.
There is entirely too much elitism on the internet.
(Moderators, feel free to knock me down. I know I'm ranting.)
Now that you mention fatbrain... (Score:1)
Re:Fatbrain? Don't be absurd. (Score:1)
Agreed.
Spamazon has sucked for at least as long as spamming has been their m.o. I almost choked when I read Katz's remark about Spamazon being "ethical". But fatbrain.com and (barnesandnoble|bn).com are also spammers, so they suck mightily too.
For online book-buying, I hear good things about Powell's [powells.com].
Lumber Cartel(TINLC) #487
Stephen doesn't live there... (Score:2)
Welcome to Fatbrain.com!
The Internet's most comprehensive professional bookstore.
You're not going to find much Stephen King there, but it is a rockin' place for tech books.
Jon messed up with this one. Wait, no, he didn't. (Score:1)
DEATH TO AMAZON.COM!!!!!
I WILL KILL HIM!!!
Okay, that may be premature, we'll see if they play nice and remove me.
Re:Jon messed up with this one. Wait, no, he didn' (Score:1)
They showed up in the preview!
<like this>
Gahhhh! Clicking on preview converts & lt;'s into
the actual char in the comment editor!!
Grrrr. Not my day.
economics is not the answer (Score:1)
To me, the wonderful thing about the internet is that it creates/encourages a philosophy that looks beyond pure ruthless economics. Hello, Open Source/Free Software? Hello, Slashdot? What do we love slashdot for except for the relative narrowness of its focus?
That's the same thing I used to love amazon for, because when I wanted books I could go and buy/browse books, and not be constantly implored to go buy a CD, someone's old crap they found in the attic, the newest star wars toy, whatever.
I always thought the brilliance of electronic retailing was in it's specificity, not it's diversity. I HATE walmart, not just because they are demonstrably evil, but because going in to one is like wondering around in the capitalist wonderland on acid. Buy our shit, we don't care if you want it or not, we have it.
This is a serious problem with the recent interleaving of traditional corporate capitalism and the new philosophy engendered by the exponential explosion of communication and the consequent/consonant destruction of traditional geographic boundaries. It deserves serious discussion; neither Katz's too-short rant nor knee-jerk capitalist defense does it justice.
fatbrain is cool, but BookPool's prices are better (Score:1)
When things are in stock, they can't be beat.
Bloody SPAMMERS (Score:1)
gurrrrrr....... :-/
Re:Reader reviews, you moron (Score:1)
Now, regarding user comments and such, as a science author I find Fatbrain's website to be vastly superior to Amazon's. For example, I submitted information about my book's website [mit.edu] in August of 1998 to both Fatbrain and Amazon. It appeared at Amazon's page for my book [amazon.com] in April of 1999 --- a mere 8 month delay. On the other hand, Fatbrain built a rather elaborate page for my book [fatbrain.com] before the book even hit the stores. (To be clear, I only started writing for Fatbrain about two months ago, so this has nothing to do we them giving special treatment---they didn't even know me at the time.)
That said, if you are looking for a Stephen King book, then definitely go to Amazon; but if you are looking for scientific and technical books, it makes sense (at least to me) to shop at a place where they specialize in geek books, seek out authors to improve their website (with original content, author recommendations, etc.) and put a great deal of effort into building an informative website that contains user review, excerpts, and author information, not just for Oprah's book club authors, but for science and technical authors that are regularly ignored by Amazon.com.
Generalization -- An Economic Perspective. (Score:3)
Amazon's "generalization" of goods and services provided make sense from an economic perspective.
Consider if you will the perfect utopia of "Perfect Competition." In this nonexistent utopia all the firms would sell everything, and an equal amount of the population would go to each of these stores. In other words, if there were 5 firms, then 1/5 of the population would go to each. There would be no differences in price or quality, because each firm would be operating in perfect competition. There would be no premium for location, because travel overhead would be nil. And the products would be the same because information on said product would be free to all (think free speech and free beer.)
Because production overhead would be matched by marginal profits, and because various other costs (information, travel, etc) do not exist in this frictionless world, it would benefit each store to sell everything that can be sold, so that the other stores would not usurp the customer base. If I sold only Linux, FreeBSD and Windows NT CD's, my competitor can sell Linux, FreeBSD, Windows NT, *and* BeOS CD's, and thus usurp my market base (while keeping his). The increased customers from my store will make up for the cost of stocking extra copies of Linux, Windows and FreeBSD.
Of course this is never going to happen in the real world, because we do have travel expenses, and information is not perfect and free. Generalization has usually been restricted to areas which have a need of it, e.g, inner city corner stores where mobility within the block is free (walking) but mobility outside is not, or spread-out midwestern towns with a Wal-mart, but the next town or mall is 20 miles away.
On the Internet, however, the travel restrictions go down exponentially (although bandwidth is a concern, you can theoretically roar through on a text-only connection), and information becomes cheaper to produce (although quality assurance is another story entirely). Slopping up a web page takes no paper, you don't have to pay for a print ad, etc etc.
By this logic (which has gaps, because I don't think I have time to quote my books nor does anyone have time to read them, myself included =P ), it is befitting for Amazon or other on-line firms to generalize.
What would happen if Amazon only sold books and E-bay decided to sell books too? What would stop E-bay from stealing Amazon's customers? E-bay could as easily stock the books that Amazon stocks from the increased ex-Amazon revenue alone. And the cost of developing a front-end is negligible: same on-line engine, it's a sunk cost and it's nearly free to run a search-and-replace function to replace "Auctioning Stupid Computer Parts" to "Selling Stupid Books".
The Internet is the closest thing to Perfect Competition that anyone has seen, and the only thing holding it back is a Quality Assurance system (it's easier to lie over the net).
Perhaps we get the Internet ISO 9000 certified? heh.
me
mxfara@not^a^chance^spam^breath.wm.edu
Bezos ain't dumb (Score:2)
Who wants to set up login accounts and billing profiles with different vendors for each type of product they buy? Who wants to use different interfaces for buying books, music, toys, shampoo and pizza?
No, all of this is going away, this whole silly "web browser" concept first and foremost. Along with the notion of "going to a web store".
I have a Palm VII. I have MySimon's comparison pricing applet for the Palm VII. I can stand in a bookstore and look up the best 25 prices on any book any time I want. And by this fall, I'm sure I'll also be able to order that book, or CD, or camera, or shoe, from any of those vendors.
This is all going to settle out into not just aggregation of pricing and catalog info as comparison-shopping services like MySimon already do. The next step will be aggregation of the buy process, so the buying will be done in a brandless environment through a higher-level aggregated shopping app. You won't know you bought that book from Amazon until the box arrives in the mail.
In the next few years, online shopping is going to assimilate into one large reverse auction experience, with companies like Amazon turning into little more than warehouse operations that participate in the bid process, unless they can offer value-adds like recommendations and promos for repeat buying. And the shopper won't even know it. From the shopper's point of view, they just know they're buying their book for a good price from one great big store.
Given this, expanding a lean pick-and-pack operation like Amazon's fulfillment center to do pick-and-pack of more goods in hopes of achieving economies of scale may be the only way to go.
Who's the dull, "unwired" guy now?
Microsoft &Fatbrain/ Amazon&Independent Artists (Score:1)
You TOTALLY miss the coolest thing Amazon offers which is their excellent Advantage program for independent musicians and authors and publishers and now even for independent film and video makers
That a total unknown artist (who doesn't have a prayer of getting her product in a book, music, or video store without a serious distribution relationship) can sell their art on Amazon in my eyes makes Amazon one of the best ecommerce companies out there!
reader comments and ratings (Score:1)
for me, what has always set amazon apart [from all online retailers] were the reader comments. I spend hundreds of dollars per month on books, and those readers' comments have steered me away from some books that would've proven useless to me after all, and toward books I'd never have considered.
For example, I almost bought a title on XML which had 5 stars, excellent reader comments, and great reviews all around -- until I read one little comment toward the end that complained about the book's focus on IE5's implementation of XML. (of course, I haven't totally written the book off, but I'm going to eyeball it first at a physical bookstore before plopping down the $35 on it).
I think it'll be great to see user comments on particular toys (ie, "it broke after the first use"), and possibly electronics, although I suspect that you'll see less useful reviews on the big-ticket items -- more like "holy wars" trolls... think "PalmPilot vs Jordana".
AFAIK amazon owns the market [right now] on "shoppers' reviews", and that's its edge. (I'll exclude
amazon vs fatbrain reader reviews (Score:1)
Speaking of Applied Crypto, I recently bought the revised edition of that myself, and was postively floored by the number of reviews [amazon.com] [at amazon], as well as the quality of those reviews. There are a few "Great!" comments, but many of them focus on what's lacking from this tome... in detail.
Contrast that with the one user-review at Fatbrain [fatbrain.com] which states simply that the book is pretty amazing.
Think Twice about B and N (Score:1)
Now, why didn't B & N bother to contact my friend and inform him of the problem? When he berated them for this "excellent service", he was promised "free shipping" on a future order. Terrific. Why would he want to use them ever again?
Why has this been moderated down??????????????? (Score:1)
These posts are called "flamebait." Big Whoop. The Entire Article by Katz is Flamebait. Practically anything the man submits here is flamebait (witness his use of feeble stereotypes and appeals to techno-elitism).
Why, in response to a flaming Katz article are these two posts considered "flamebait"? Why is the original article allowed to flame but responses to it are not?
Hmmmmm???
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:1)
What they did right was a simple thing: combining a forum with a sales site. It allowed customers to talk to each other, to help to select the best product. That Amazon offered lower prices than the average corner store was just an added benefit.
Some of the more Net-savvy observers thought that Amazon had a clue about how the Internet worked: it's about communication, & building a community by sharing information. People who use the Internet aren't eyeballs -- to quote the Cluetrain Manefesto -- they are talking to each other: & if you aren't listening as well as talking, people will stop listening to you.
Then Amazon decided to spam people on the Internet, which was the wrong thing to do. Anyone with an email address will tell you that they don't like spam, & this is a surefire way to break up the exchange of information.
This proved that Bezos believed that he only had a gizmo, a single cheap trick that garned him attention. Since that moment, every step Amazon has taken only shows that they don't understand the Internet: they've rolled over when the ``Church" of Scientology complained about listing _A Piece of Blue Sky_ in their catalog, they've deleted comments from their forums to appease publishers. And Amazon has yet to show how it will ever make a profit.
Instead of making his points by detailing these actions -- as well as others -- Katz is content to make generalizations on Slashdot better saved for people less informed.
I hope Jon will consider this when he writes his next article.
A last thought concerning Amazon: had Sanford Wallace taken Cyberpromo thru an IPO, I wonder if its shares would have reached a couple of hundreds of dollars apiece, too? From what I could tell, Wallace at least made money at some points from that company.
Geoff
Re:New law of e-commerce? (Score:1)
chromatic's law: Web sites that sell stuff expand until they can auction off free e-mail addresses.
--
QDMerge [rmci.net] -- data + templates = documents.
man, depressing. (Score:1)
It's really sad...
-s
But Jon's improving (Score:4)
Chuck
I have a very short attenti....
Windows (Score:1)
What a bizarre comment.
Did it ever occur to you that they use windows because it happened to be the best option for them? Even if you accept that a Unix solution would be better, there are a whole load of very good reasons why they might have NT. For instance: imagine that when they started up, they only had a few guys on board and the server guy happened to know NT best. Naturally, they would then choose NT. Now, given that it would be a pain for them to change over to a different system, why should they? especially if the systems they have at present does the job anyway.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
In general, companies don't tend to be religious about what operating system they use - they have their own best interests at heart and will do whatever they feel works best for them. It's not some weird conspiracy or anything...
I've only been pleased with Amazon. (Score:1)
I really think Katz is off the mark here. Amazon is a business, not a shiney toy-like net thing to be oooo'ed and awwwed over. I wonder why he's trying to hurt Amazon's image here. I don't think it will work. Amazon does help out websites such a Slashdot, giving them a few hundred bucks when you click through. Its free money for Slashdot, money
Web site's $$$ (Score:1)
Re:Powells City of Books (Score:1)
Amazon is pooopy when compared to Powells. POwells Tech Annex even has a cafe, again, attached aso you can sit with the newest Oriely book and chug a Chai.
Makes Web Brower book buying just that much less attractive.
(you know your a powells addict, when you color code your home library like powells)
Think Global Buy Local - wafting airballs with JK (Score:1)
Big Biz is always the Bad Guy, Money is the Wages OF Sin, Winning=Loosing....
With amazon I think the jk trend is once again clearly shown. Let something grow big enough, then smash it down with an 3l3tist underdog punchout.
Now lets set aside the rhetoric of the "opressed masses being down trodden by the evil captialist" and look to see what is being said here.
JK loved amazon, had lurid dreams of mass market geeky splendor over the IDEA of buying books over the net. It is a great idea to be sure, but as with all blowhards and windbags for hire JK was predestined to turn on that which he loved so well.
JK i think would be quick to throw his verbal support behind most anything that Looks like a geek and Talks like a Geek and , thanks to the current mass market mangling of the word, is as far from Geek as Starbucks is from JD's Corner Cafe and Cigar Emporium
He is not alone in this. How many things do you support that have the out apperance of this thing called "geek" but are in fact simple old trype in new terms?
Amazon is out to make a bigger growing bizness. Wow..what an evil thought. Im sure JK would continue to bow at thier feet ifthey had at least kept thier "small net industry" image another year or two, even though as has been pointed out here Amazon is one of the forces in destroying something called Local Booksellers.
Now some may say this destruction is bad, some may say it is merely the consolidation of forces under one marketable net image (insert SF ad created logo and qt file here). Some would argue that it is the diversity of an indusrty that keeps it growing,not in the every grwoing unisource approach.
For myself, I spend my money (which is how consumers VOTE for a thing to stay in existence) at a local book sellers named Powells Tech. In Portland Powells is the biggest little bookseller:)- Also in Portland there are great little local SF shops, Record stores and specialty shops.
It is a city, in short, whos economy supports the idea of capitalistic diversity in the face of mass market monarchy.
Think Global, act local is a phrase often used but rarely understood.
I would suggest JK look beyond the press releases and obvious children of the so called geek movement and judge on a value system, rather than a system of rhetoric.
--No animals were harmed in this adventure in misspelling--
Books.com? Not any more... (Score:3)
They offered ebooks too... It was a pleasure to return there.
Until one day... they were bought (by Cendant, I believe). Suddenly, the spirit was gone. Only the name remained. They moved to Windows servers. Their interfaces were horribly broken, their uptime a disaster. Marketing at its worst was there to ruin it all.
The BookStacks we knew and love, the BookStacks that should be praised in any history of the bold online commerce pioneers, had died.
For some of those who had been on the Internet since before the WWW big bang, it was a very, very sad day.
Amazon Electronics (Score:2)
But I gotta tell you, a 10-12% discount just doesn't thrill me compared to the fun of wandering into a consumer electronics store, looking at the pretty products in their boxes, and grabbing the one I want right then and there.
I will admit that there's something unsettling about suddenly seeing books shoved into second place. This is probably even more true if you're a published author like Jon, and even more so if you've been on the Amazon bestseller list.
Still, this is one Jon Katz piece that I think should have been longer. I'd like to see more of his reasoning behind why this is so unsettling to him. But it doesn't strike me as a truly seminal shift; the books are still there on their virtual shelves, the customer reviews are still there. As far as I can tell, all is well. I'd like to hear a more detailed reason for his turning on Jeff Bezos and pals.
Personally, I would never, ever order a book from fatbrain.com or barnesandnoble.com - they use Windows servers, and I refuse to support companies that use Windows when there are alternatives. Amazon, of course, uses Digital Unix.
D
PS But maybe something did change. I copied and pasted that URL into my review twice and both times it didn't work. Bizarre! I wonder what's going on.
----
Re:Windows (Score:2)
In addition, Barnes & Noble raised my ire by suing Amazon over the "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" slogan. Tacky, tacky B&N. I don't forget things like that, and I don't want to deal with the type of person who would pursue such a suit. The suit, of course, was dropped after massive protests from people who felt the same way, but it's still a substantial drag on B&N's image for me.
D
----
Humph. (A follow-up to my own post) (Score:2)
--
We'll be right back!
We're sorry, but our Books, Music, Video, Toys, and Electronics stores are closed temporarily.
We expect to be back soon.
--
Oops.
Maybe Jon Katz is right?
:-(
D
----
Re:In Defense of Amazon and Barnes and Noble (Score:2)
It doesn't have anything to do with price; it has to do with selection. And this, of course, is also why "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" is so successful.
I can certainly be made to feel sad about the decline of independents, even though the bookstore mentioned in the LA Reader as the epitome of these problems is still in business. It happens that bookstore, Midnight Special in Santa Monica, was able to retain its niche of leftist books, especially since leftists feel like they are Doing the Right Thing by supporting it.
I think one of the biggest things B&N, Borders and Amazon have done is to increase the number of readers, and increase the number of times I and others can go to a bookstore and find an interesting book we haven't read before. In my view, that's a great service, and that's why I love the big stores.
D
----
Funny. It looks about the same to me. (Score:2)
the new Amazon sucks profoundly.
Why would they change such a great company?
Few companies have ever attracted more interest and publicity and made less money.
I think you answered this question, Jon.
It may not be as hip as you want it to be, but the "hipper-than-life" Jeff Bezos has to make a company that makes money one day.
Re:Uncalled For (and now Off-topic) (Score:2)
Thanks for the info.
Amazon.com = sellout? (Score:2)
Frankly, let's leave youthful idealism to those that haven't figured out that it's about the money.
As for Amazon.com, more power to them. Dell has been selling computers the way Amazon sells books, for some time now. It works great.
Let's look at it from Bezos's point of view. If things other than books can be sold the same way, why should WE do it before someone else does?
And now I can get more shopping done in fewer clicks.
Market conditions make their best move (Score:2)
Head over to this onion article [theonion.com] for a truely excellent explanation of why the majority of net people will probably love this.
Or even if you don't care about the amazon thing (in which case you're probably not reading this post) head over anyway, because it is an awesome article.
Re:Reader reviews, you moron -- right on! AND MORE (Score:2)
What the?!?? (Score:3)
You accuse Amazon of becoming a 'tacky online K-Mart'. The point of being a consumer is finding the best price for the goods you want to consume. If that means shopping at K-Mart instead of Eddie Bauer, then shop at K-Mart.
From a programmers perspective I will agree that an expanded Amazon is a bit confusing. I would never extend my bookstore object with a buyToy() method. It isn't object oriented. But Amazon exists in the business world, where being a bookstore does not preclued you from selling other things too. If Amazon is able to expand their market and include toys and electronics, more power too them.
This really shouldn't be a surprise (Score:4)
Many stock analysts insulted Amazon investors for running up the price of an "internet bookstore" that wasn't making any money, and in fact publicly stated that they were going to spend MORE. Now it should be clear why.
My humble opinion..
Aramis
Never that cool... but now they really suck... (Score:4)
Amazon was handy for relatives sending gifts and the like, but they may now suffer for what is killing Yahoo -- too much added junk, not enough attention on what made them worth visiting in the first place.
Oh, and nice article Jon. :)
They have suffered... (Score:2)
I used to love Amazon - I would shop there exclusively for books. I even liked it when the opened the music store, I could at last buy my CD's and books at the same time - so what if a few of the books cracked some of the CD's in a shipment?
Then they went wild... over time, I grew also to think of them more of a K-mart that a cool bookstore. The prices seemed to creep up a little (that may well be an unfounded statement, but remember we are talking appearances here). I tried out the Auction site - keyword searches seem to return almost random results (i.e. entries that do not even contain the keyword I typed).
So, the last CD/DVD order I placed was from 800.com - free shipping, and 800.com actually had a CD Amazon didn't. Fatbrain is now the first place I look for a book.
By trying to grab everything, they have lost a sense of quality and focus that made them unique.
Re:A bunch of online bookstores -- this time w/ UR (Score:2)
http://www.daedalusbooks.com/
I've been shopping out of their classic remainders catalog since I was just a wee little thing, and their website is a perfect, perfect extension of it.
One thing they got right, that I think Katz correctly identified, is that atmosphere and aesthetics have a lot to do with a good book-buying experience.
I know it (Score:2)
There are more bookstore choices now, absolutely. But I'm still using Amazon for a couple of key reasons:
I don't like that he's branching all over the place, especially when it makes it harder for me to get the information I want. But the fact is, I still can get the information I want. Until he changes that, I'm not likely to switch providers.
And what planet are you from today? (Score:5)
Thanks for the pointer to Fatbrain, but . . . (Score:3)
Let me ask you one question: Does Amazon still provide the same high-quality (IMHO) service with respect to books? Has the bookselling actually suffered?
No? Then stop sounding like such a nostalgic old fogey. Besides, what's wrong with K-mart, you big snob? Face it, this posting is just like your earlier piece on the end of the Wired era. All you're doing is bitching that the hoi polloi have invaded your sandbox. Boo hoo.
What image does Katz have of the Net? (Score:3)
Katz' articles regularly annoy and frustrate me, since he tends to espouse the outlook of "the Net will change the world completely, and it should follow my ethical outlook". It's a tool, not a religion.
I guess I'll be doing my book shopping at B and N (Score:2)
So, that brings up the question: what is Amazon's core strength now and how will the public file that information in their busy minds?
depressing, schmapressing. (Score:2)
So, each of you may groan everytime Amazon adds another product line, but I know I'll be excited and happy for them. It's a great site, and I think they deserve to turn a profit (which books alone weren't doing). I hope they stay online for many years to come.
+--
Given infinite time, 100 monkeys could type out the complete works of Shakespeare.
Re:man, depressing. (Score:2)
"Price Compare or Search Online Bookstores by ISBN" http://isbn.nu [isbn.nu]
... a great way to find out who REALLY has the best prices for books on the net.
-Kazir (c:
Fatbrain? Don't be absurd. (Score:2)
Expecting too much (Score:2)
Ultimately, Amazon wants to be your single source for buying stuff on the web. What is wrong with that? Did anyone go postal when Yahoo! started including banner ads and corporate sites in its index. Did anyone say "Oh, Yahoo! has lost it's coolness, sold out, and become less than it should be." Maybe people did, but Yahoo! is the most powerful pure-play Internet company there is, and more power to it!
That's the thing about the market, if there's demand it will be fed. Amazon's competency is in user interface and product delivery, not in Books qua Books. Bezos said in an interview a few years ago it could have been any product, books just seemed best at the time because the people on the web were literate/intelligent and books are easy to distribute. Now that Amazon has learned how to do the good online store interface and how to efficiently distribute its goods, it's applying that to toys, and electronics, and everything else.
Where Yahoo! is the ultimate portal, Amazon seeks to be the ultimate store. The one-stop online shop. And it SHOULD because WalMart comes online in the next six months, B&N is breathing down its book-centric neck, and eBay is the king of the auction houses. Amazon must expand to grow.
So I say more power to it. Amazon means I don't have to reinput all my user info to buy a different good at a different site. Amazon means I KNOW the kind of service and guarantees I'm going to get when buying my music or electronic because they're the guarantees I got when buying my books.
Amazon is about the customer's perception of buying and selling online.
It's not just about books.
IMHO.
In Defense of Amazon and Barnes and Noble (Score:4)
- I used to work for Barnes and Noble (not in over a year, though)
- I also used to work for Waldenbooks (incidentally, owned by the same company that owns Borders and K-Mart)
Publishing has never been an industry that it is easy to make money in. Books, because of the intelligence generally required to read them, reek of elitism, boredom, and effort to too many people. Publishing houses often struggle just to keep out of the red every year. Ever wonder why it's so hard for new writers to break in to the market? Well, if you were a publishing house thinking about investing scads of money in book design/production/marketing, wouldn't you want a sure bet too?
Amazon is no different. And neither is Barnes and Noble. The Waldenbooks I used to work for was small, shabby, neglected by the corporation because of its comparatively rural location. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, was spacious, had the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in (I used to spend my breaks in them), and has tons of variety.
I saw an article while working at B&N that summed up the reasons why I support B&N (unfortunately, I don't have it anymore): It allows for diversity. The one I worked in had entire subsections on linguistics, anthropology. That would have been undreamed of at Waldens. The point is, while Barnes and Noble may not support diversity of vendor (i.e., other bookstores), it does support diversity of supplier (i.e., publishers). It carries thousands of publishers, from small university or religious presses to your well-known East Coast publishers like Random House, etc. That's really not such a bad thing.
The other thing I like about Barnes and Noble is that it at least curries an air of intelligence and literacy. The decor is classical, the musical selections don't tend to be your typical top40, the offerings, once you get out of the bestsellers section, are eclectic and tolerant of many ideologies. In short: It doesn't dumb itself down to the customer. It makes the customer feel all that more literate and intelligent for being there.
Barnes and Noble is not the evil empire. It's trying to make money, just like Amazon. Quite frankly, if people go to Amazon to buy a pikachu, happen to wander in to the books section, and buy a paperback while they're at it, then Amazon's "sellout" has been justified. Of all the industries trying to make money in America today, the publishing and book industries are among the most severely handicapped by modernday illiteracy, apathy, and lack of interest in anything remotely intellectual. Don't begrudge Amazon or B&N of the steps they have to take to keep people supplied with what they need to keep their minds alive.
In the end, Barnes and Noble is a reading mecca for me. If my old Waldenbooks location closes down (which it is threatened with annually), then the only bookstore in that area will be the Christian bookstore. Don't knock it if you have a bookstore near you, regardless of what you think of its commercialism. Amazon and other online book retailers have the unique ability of being anywhere there is an Internet connection. And that, for the people that shop my old Waldenbooks store, may someday be the only place they can go for a diversity of books that are selected free of religious concerns.
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:2)
After using Amazon and Slashdot, I have begun to instinctively try and 'respond' whenever I hear anything. I was listening to a segment on NPR last night and my automatic compulsion was to hit 'reply'. Of course, there was no such button on my radio. I think I accidentally turned on G. Gordon Liddy, instead.
At the risk of sounding too much like Katz, the ability of the internet to bring the power of response to the masses is, IMHO, its most significant attribute.
-awc
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:2)
I have attended enough meetings of boards devoted to all sorts of useless stuff (the use of Pittsburgh's city funds to create 'online monuments' on the scale of physical structures--who cares!?) to know that there is a serious risk of becoming mired down in minutae and other pointless silliness in the pursuit of their new realm of human interaction.
I don't see the internet as that. I see it as an extremely effective way to communicate. And, like any extremely effective way to communicate and interact, it has created its own mini-societies and cultures. Those are great, and I love them. I am a little alarmed by the commercialization of the internet, but that is an unavoidable result of its increasing popularity. I acknowlege that there is a point at which we have to stop being purists and start being plain realistic. If more people like Amazon.com because they can buy Power Rangers at the same time as they buy an O'Reilly book and a copy of The Collected Works of Karl Marx, then bully for them, and bully for Amazon! They are fulfilling a desire that people have. If they do it poorly, they will go away. As i said before, they are less 'pure', but they are more functional. And that is, by no means, a bad thing.
-awc
Re:And what planet are you from today? (Score:5)
Now, if Amazon did start sucking significantly (sucking is purposefully vague, there), I would go somewhere else. That's capitalism. I don't like it very much, but it typically gets the job done.
-awc
Re:I guess I'll be doing my book shopping at B and (Score:3)
They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me
Just a sign of the times.... (Score:2)
I also see this as part of the disturbing (well, to me any way) trend today of the box/program/thing that does it all. Do people really want to surf the web on their TV? Or check e-mail/surf the web with their cell phone? Or be able to create web sites, documents and a spread sheet all from Word? Maybe it's just me, but I don't want a stereo that surfs the web, or a coffe maker I can tell to turn on by sending it e-mail, or...well, you should have the idea by now.
To my mind, the best products come from picking a relatively small set of features (with the size of small being determined by what you are designing) and making those features easy to use. But, maybe that's just the engineer in me.
Amazon Heralds the End of E-commerce retail (Score:2)
The real money in e-commerce won't come from retail sales (though online sales are a nice supplement to real world sales), and it won't come from streamlining and integration of real world and online inventories (though that is a significant way to cut costs). The web is all about destroying middlemen, and retailers are the ultimate middlemen! Why not go to eBay and buy that new bestselling hardcover from a guy in Tulsa who just finished it for five bucks plus shipping?
No, the real money in E-commerce is going to come from the sale and analysis of DATA and information. The web is first and foremost a communications medium; it's greatest strength is its ability to send data back and forth... it's therefore a natural assumption that money should come from the sale and transfer of significant and valuable pieces of data.
The company I work for currently has two clients who are leveraging their databases onto the Internet, and we're designing databases and making convenient web-based search and reporting front-ends for their subscribers. These companies are going to get a hell of a lot of money from people using the same data source. Their only overhead will be maintaining the servers and databases - no inventory, or shipping costs, or anything.
Internet companies that sell services and information online are going to be the truly profitable e-commerce sites. The problem is, most people are still trapped in the "world of atoms", as Negroponte puts it. They're still trying to fit real world strategies into the online world, and when the balloon bursts and people realize it's not going to work that way, stock prices are going to crash really, really hard.
Mike Caprio [ldbw.com]