May 2nd, 2012 § Comments Off on not gonna fly: hyperink, ebooks from everyone § permalink
i like books, i like blogs, i like long tail models, but i don’t think this will work:
With the “Blog To Books” program, Hyperink assigns a staff editor to curate a blogger’s posts, structure them into a narrative format, and then create a book in PDF, epub, and mobi formats.
from: Techcrunch
it’s not the amount of work really, but the available supply and demand – there is not much of either:
- i’d guess there is less than 20k blogs that will ever want to create a sellable ebook
- i’d guess that each of them will sell 50 ebooks, mainly as gifts for their friends
it saddens me when investors and media pump up the expectations of otherwise interesting startup teams. sure you can argue that if the team is right, they will pivot from this idea anyway. but in b3c marketplace businesses like this, it usually takes a lot of energy to get enough disproof that you can actually decide to pivot.
meh.
January 28th, 2012 § § permalink
Image by circulating via Flickr
wow, what an awesomely fun project from my fellow Slovenians.
I can well imagine those dusty librarians having immense amount of fun packaging these together and trying to imagine the reader who will have receivedThe Stranger, 1Q84 and The Little Prince in an existentialists pacage, and how that will impact her life from that point onwards, and how she will  become a better person and help older people cross the street, and gather courage to divorce that annoying husband after 15 years and start having relaxed fun in life again.
i got a bit carried away here, but the project really sounds like something libraries should do more often. people like to get surprised in real world.
Last year we saw both people and dogs loaned out by libraries, but it would seem there’s still plenty that can still be done with books as well. Aiming to introduce more fun into library loaning, The National and University Library of Slovenia recently ran a program offering mystery packs of books to their customers.
via: www.springwise.com
August 12th, 2010 § Comments Off on How to save Barnes and Noble and improve American way of life § permalink
Was reading this article on how formerly greatest bookstore is doing to improve and accommodate for the future. I’m thrilled to hear they are doing something, because I really enjoy visiting bookstores, and theirs are one of the best. But…
The main question they are focusing on is “how to get more visitors?” – very contemporary 🙂 and their answer is: by putting stuff other than books on the shelves – games, toys,… All good and well if it works, but I’d rather see two other tactics being employed to make bookstore more appealing.
- give me good coffee and I’ll spend hours browsing around these urban oasis. Bookstores are the quietest, most pleasant environments in a big city, where you can be with yourself. Now if they also spoiled me just a bit… 🙂 Learn from Bar And Books.
- stop thinking of yourself as a store, bookshop of the future is actually a storefront. Don’t bother with the counters, just let me buy digital editions by using a camera on my smartphone. I would buy many many books if I didn’t have to carry them around and get bad conciseness while waiting in line to pay. Think iTunes, micropayments, cheaper editions, audiobooks bundles…
Basically, what I’m saying is: Leverage the best attributes that amazon can’t copy and build on them. Otherwise We’ll start browsing trough your stores and buy online.
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