Alexa Clark wrote a piece for One Degree today about Indigo going community and while I am intrigued and somewhat not surprised that Chapters Indigo would dive into social media, I am disappointed that there has simply been more of the same in the world wide web ever since Facebook’s growth exploded. Businesses have been keen on capturing the attention of users on social mediums and the whole web 2.0 trend. I don’t think it works (at least not in the way that many businesses are going about it) and even if it does, I believe the cost of development outweighs the outcome. Especially for corporate entities to attempt to invade the web 2.0 realm. I guess Chris Anderson just might disagree with regards to the long tail but … maybe not?
While social mediums like Facebook provide a universal platform and forum for book lovers, readers and people in general to share common or different interests, consumer-oriented social media do not necessarily work that effectively. It is true that people who do not use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace would be more likely to use the social media functions that Chapters Indigo have introduced today but I fail to see how that is truly extending their website’s reach. Just some random thoughts:
1. Users already have to sign in and setup numerous “profiles” for the many social media that they are apart of … why make it yet another one? Why do I have to set up everything all over again? Why should I? How do I benefit? (Also noted by Alexa)
2. Creating a social medium on your own website is making the assumption that people come to your website for the function of sharing. Unfortunately, the Internet is not driven in that manner, especially when you are talking about highly competitive web 2.0 applications. True, you can alter the function of your website but what for? Focus on what your website is good at and extend it with a Facebook application instead. I can see Indigo is planning for that but I still feel that a lot of their new developments were an unnecessary investment. The whole idea behind web 2.0 is decentralization … not the other way around. I go through web 2.0 applications and websites extremely fast. There are so many sites and if the site does not hook me within 5 minutes, it has lost my vote … very similar to any book in many ways.
3. When moving into the realm of web 2.0, think bigger and beyond Facebook. Every company wants to make use of the social graph. However recently there is a lot of talk about social graph aggregating but only for the use of allowing individuals control their own data. Will this be possible? It should be. Jump ahead of the game and let it happen. Let users decide how they can manipulate, extrapolate, analyze, and showcase their own data.
I’m not absolutely saying that this venture by Chapters Indigo into social media is a bad idea, but it is an old one and somewhat overused.
I think Futureshop had the right idea with integrating some aspects of web 2.0 with selling online. Trying something different that makes it truly unique from other web 2.0 e-commerce websites, it introduced videos and forums that potential customers could interact with in addition to online staff that would be of assistance. It isn’t that this formula works for everyone but it was right for Futureshop, I just don’t have that feeling for Chapters Indigo and it’s newly introduced social medium. Not yet anyways … we’ll see.
