ENTRIES TAGGED "Laura Hazard Owen"
Signs of life at Barnes & Noble
They're not about to knock off Amazon but their latest innovations are a pleasant surprise
I tend to be pretty open with my criticism when I feel an organization is doing something wrong. That’s why I feel compelled to also speak up and give credit when credit is due. In this case, I’d like to applaud some recent announcements by Barnes & Noble.
Taking on the discoverability problem
This recent article from Laura Hazard Owen highlights B&N’s news and the most important point can be summarized in one word: discoverability. B&N has always had the benefit of a brick-and-mortar presence and that presence brings with it years of knowledge about the art of discoverability, at least in the physical world. Now B&N needs to apply that knowledge to the online world.
Most importantly though, I’m thrilled that B&N is acting like a leader here and not simply following Amazon on the critical issue of discoverability.
I absolutely love B&N’s new Instant Collections feature (also referred to as Nook Channels). Yes, every ebook retailer has offered cross-sell recommendations from day one but they always feel very automated to me. B&N’s Instant Collections has more of a hand-curated feel to it. I was just looking over the History by Plot collection and I know I’m going to buy a few of those now. That’s rare for me as I don’t generally open my wallet for new ebooks without a recommendation from someone I know.
Shop from within the book — what a concept
Then there’s this comment from Theresa Horner, B&N’s VP of digital content:
We’re trying to integrate that shopping experience from right inside the book. We don’t require somebody to go to the shop.
Doesn’t that seem like something that should have been in every ebook reader app from day one? It’s so obvious but nobody had implemented it till now. Btw, when I tweeted this yesterday someone replied saying they don’t want to be bothered with ads and nags to buy from within the book. I’ve got to believe that’s not how B&N plans to implement this. If they’re smart they’ll make it unobtrusive yet easily accessible from within the book. Very smart.
If B&N has the benefit of discovery experience from their physical bookstores you have to say that one of Amazon’s advantages is their breadth of products. Books are where Amazon started but they’re only part of a much larger store now. B&N, on the other hand, pretty much lives and dies by the book industry. That’s why the decision to add “about 100 catalogs from such retailers as L.L. Bean and Pottery Barn for free browsing” is such an interesting development. B&N isn’t suddenly going to expand their online catalog to match Amazon’s so why not partner with some of the biggest names in non-book retailing and add their products to the Nook ecosystem? I’m assuming B&N receives a portion of any sales generated by L.L. Bean, Pottery Barn, etc., through this program, btw.
Making recommendations personal
The “Your Nook Today” functionality is also long overdue. I don’t need yet another screen telling me the current weather but I would definitely welcome product recommendations based on the content that’s on my device. Prior to buying a Nook with GlowLight I had a Kindle Touch with Special Offers. Those “special offers” were random, paid ads that had nothing to do with my interests. Since I never clicked through any of the offers I often wondered how much advertising money was wasted on them. Don’t just stop there though, B&N…feel free to steal any of these ideas I suggested earlier.
I’m pretty happy with my Asus Transformer Prime but if B&N keeps innovating like this they might get me to buy one of their tablets. Better yet, maybe they’ll just add this functionality into their Nook app so everyone can enjoy it.
Kindle Serials is the next brick in Amazon’s walled garden
The serial publishing social opportunity is huge, but not if it's done exclusively
The Kindle Serials program was one of the more interesting aspects of Amazon’s big press event a couple of weeks ago. We’ve done a few serial publishing experiments at O’Reilly (e.g., Every Book Is a Startup and Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and we’ve confirmed that this approach can help authors and publishers connect with readers more than they might through a traditional book.
I also think a serial publishing model could be just what it takes to bring more of a social element to reading. Since the book comes out in segments customers will be reading it at the same time. Depending on how much time passes between installments there will be plenty of opportunities for readers to talk about the story so far and speculate on what will happen next. Amazon is well positioned to capture that conversation as they note at the end of the Serials description:
…and discuss episodes with other readers in the Kindle forums.
This works best during the writing/installment phase since synchronous reading across the entire audience pretty much ends once the whole work is available. It’s like weekly TV shows. There’s a nice rhythm where the audience shares laughs from a comedy or speculates what will happen next in a drama. Serial publishing can bring that same phenomenon to ebooks.
What I don’t like about this model though is the content exclusivity aspect of it. As Laura Hazard Owen notes in The serious business of Kindle Serials, some authors are rejecting Amazon’s exclusivity requirement. Good for them. The last thing we need is to see is even higher walls around the Kindle platform.
The Kindle Remorse article I wrote earlier talked about how consumers probably don’t even realize they’re gradually locking themselves into a platform. That’s because Kindle Serials is just the next brick in Amazon’s walled garden.
The social engagement needs to extend much further than any one retailer’s platform. That’s why a service like ReadSocial has always been so appealing to me; it’s open and offered through an API that any content provider can leverage.
Amazon feels it’s in their best interest to create a closed model that also features exclusive content. That’s why I was disappointed (but not surprised) when they forced Findings to shut down their Kindle Highlights sharing feature. I’m hoping that more authors will take the same stance that Byliner did and say no to Amazon’s exclusivity requirements for Kindle Serials. We need more open digital content platforms and fewer closed, closely-guarded ones.