Archive for the 'books' Category

Lay Down the Blame Arrow and Look in the Mirror

Published
by
Ehren
on June 19, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, Unthinkables, books, economics, marketing and work
. 0 Comments

I’ve been itching to talk about the recently revamped copyright law in Canada but I’ve held back for the most part.  I decided otherwise after I was reading Matthew Ingram’s article in the Globe and Mail about music sales being the lowest in 20 years and that — yet again — the blame is placed on the customers, not buying enough and downloading illegal copies of music.  This by the way is untrue as new reports have surfaced.  This is beside the actual point of this post.

What I find amusing about every media industry (and I work in one) is that we continue to direct the blame away from ourselves.  The Music industry blames the internet and file-sharing sites; the video game industry blames the internet for game piracy; the movie industry of course blames the internet and file-sharing sites as well as video games; and the book industry blames all other industries for its troubles and for overshadowing the importance of books (plus one another internally).  What’s next?  Are we going to blame lower sales on the lack of fuel cell-powered vehicles in North America?

We all know the internet and customers are not really to blame.  We can try to delegate the blame but it really does not make a whole lot of sense in the end.  Many businesses are built upon taking advantage of current events, emotions and impulses that every consumer may have — if that’s the case, why wouldn’t a consumer do exactly the same to a business if provided with the opportunity?  Especially when there is usually little or no reason for a consumer to display any sign of loyalty.  Oh right, the law.

This law protects the rights of the creator or developer of a product and ensures that the creator or developer receives due credit ($$$) for their work.  I quite respect that.  This is vital to ensuring that people who are creative and innovative and who take risks will ultimately survive.  But where does it say that this risk is guaranteed to provide a complete return?

I think it is important for artists, authors, creators, and developers to receive credit for their work but I also feel that entire industries should not be complaining about customers and blaming them for their losses (or so-called losses in some cases) if they don’t receive the credit or attention that they expect for their work.

Why should we as customers care? Because customers don’t deserve the blame.  Customers deserve more — we all deserve something greater than what currently exists.

Businesses and creators currently dictate what should and shouldn’t be produced, what can and can’t be improved, what is and isn’t possible.  I respect business owners, shareholders, and in particular entrepreneurs because of the risk they take but I disagree with approaches that are focused on putting business before the customer.  Any company’s success is linked directly to their customers, not to the company internally.  It is we the customer who:

1. Decides what to pay for and what not to pay for.

2. Decide a product’s level of usefulness.

3. Ultimately find out the hard way what’s easy to use and not so easy to use

4. Discover which book was worth the read, what song was great to listen to, and what art we actually enjoy.

5. Are hurt or injured by the errors and mistakes in judgment that businesses make in the process of developing their product.

It is we the customer who deserve the right to want and demand more from businesses and creators.  Creators deserve the respect for their achievement but they ultimately serve those who are willing to embrace what they have produced and/or selling.

Customers are ultimately part of the product creation and development process — not simply the recipients.  I think social media websites are on the cutting edge in this field because they are forced to identify what they are doing wrong for the customer on an extremely frequent and consistent basis — and then make the appropriate changes.

I’m not saying that we have to take this route for all media, but I believe that it is important for all businesses to step in this direction.

Books and the Cycle of Blame

I can elaborate on books as a medium since I work in the book industry. It’s somewhat sad.  People blame video games taking attention away from reading.  People blame movies for that too … and television … and the internet … and anything else we can pretty much put our finger on.

That’s just reason number one for why books don’t sell as well as they used to.  Let’s take a look at other reasons that frequently pop up in the discussion, shall we?

Publishers blame booksellers for not pushing their books enough.

Publishers blame booksellers for not carrying greater numbers of books on their limited shelf space.

Publishers blame authors for not being more active and promoting the book.

Publishers blame government grants for not providing more support.

Booksellers blame publishers for not helping them out and doing more.

Booksellers blame publishers for selling direct over the internet.

Booksellers blame publishers for focusing on selling bulk quantities of books to larger chains such as Chapters, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Costco, etc.

… and most recently, booksellers blame publishers for focusing on wholesalers and distributors.

Authors blame publishers for not pushing their books enough to booksellers.

Authors blame publishers for not helping them get more publicity.

This is all … wrong.

We complain about how people aren’t reading enough yet the opposite is true — there is more reading taking place than ever before.  Just not the way we think it SHOULD be.  Then again, when did we as the book industry earn the right to decide what SHOULD be?  The customer dictated what they wanted eons ago and now they are evolving.  The fact that we have tied ourselves so closely to what “should be” has ultimately hurt ourselves, damaged our credibility, while simultaneously forced us to ignore the customer.

Businesses and customers both have rights.  But the right to dictate what becomes successful and what doesn’t belongs to the customer.

Photograph by Jasoon

We have only ourselves to blame.  Just like the music industry, movie industry, and all other media industries.  We have not been listening to all of our customers.  We merely listened to the core group of people who refer to themselves as book readers/lovers.  Even when industry-wide sales started declining, we decided to point fingers at each other rather than look at ourselves or the way we actually do things — and instead of finding a way to adapt to the evolving customer, we continue to force the customer to adapt to us.  We argue amongst ourselves and tell each other this is simply how it is and that we need to keep publishing massive number of books in order to stay in business because the government grants favour specific types of books over others.  Is this the way we want to continue to operate into the future?

Now here is the true dilemma we face.  We keep thinking that ebooks are the future and are the solution to our problems — but they aren’t.  They are merely another medium that will converge with other media in time.  The key to solving our problems isn’t by looking for another way to push more books, it’s how we look at ourselves and what we sell.

Time to step in front of the mirror.

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Whilst at Book Expo…

Published
by
Ehren
on June 16, 2008
in Interests, Mentions, books, fun, marketing, web 2.0 and work
. 0 Comments

So I’ve spent the past weekend at Book Expo Canada.  A few of my colleagues are generally much more enthusiastic (and in some cases optimistic) than I am but I nonetheless tag along because it’s both amusing and fun to see my co-workers have so much fun (… right, and because it’s all part of the job of course).  Lots of meetings, lots of free books (more given out than received… or in my case — none).

The funniest thing that seemed to pop up in various conversations was the fact that whether it may be publicity, traditional or online marketing — the question from management always seems to be:  “Can we do it for less?” or “Can we do this for this small amount of $$?”

photograph by http2007

No this isn’t Book Expo Canada but if they offered free food, it might as well be!
Photograph by http2007

The answer is usually very simple.  You’re either going to provide me with the monetary resources or you are going to provide me with the time work on some form of initiative — either way, it’s not “free”.

What I found most amusing was that as soon as I got home was that my mind got hit with three ebooks.  Mind you, they are all books that are marketing and business driven so they don’t necessarily serve as the literary world’s finest examples but they do indicate how books can be more than just another book.

I ran across Dave Balter’s The Word of Mouth Mouth Manual Volume II which I should add is available in PDF format to download for free.  Haven’t fully read it yet but the few pages I have scanned have impressed me thus far.

I then ran across Dave Balter’s book again on Seth Godin’s own blog which reminded myself and all his other readers about Seth Godin’s Ideavirus — also free for download in PDF format.

And then … I was reminded of Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo’s recent book on social media Getting to First Base which isn’t free but I did purchase it out of support for a great introduction to social media.  Despite the fact that I did get the ebook a while ago, I haven’t finished reading it yet — about half way through and it’s good for anyone who needs to hit management on the head with some sort of wake-up call, or even those in management themselves!

Seriously, I need an ebook reader … Amazon Kindle where are you in Canada?!  While we were all busy marketing books at a trade show and conference — the word continues to spread about books available online, one way or another.

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Every Author’s Challenge

Published
by
Ehren
on May 24, 2008
in Mentions, books, marketing and work
. 2 Comments

I’m really supposed to be focusing on programming a website but I felt it was necessary to share this after @nejsnave posted this link to this video(below) over twitter.  This’ll be a quick post.  The video is by a HarperCollins author, Dennis Cass.

 

This is the problem that every marketing department is facing in the book publishing industry.  It is wrong for a marketing or publicity department to throw everything at the author.  Promotion on the web does not require an author to throw themselves into every social medium — rather the idea is to ensure that there is a way for people to connect with an author and vice versa.  Marketing departments should be working with the author to develop what I refer to as a connection point. I’ll get into that another day but I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

That said, authors still need a blog and they still need to blog on a not necessarily frequent but consistent basis.  I’d rather authors have a blog than a purely promotional website.  It is pretty much the same except the fact that a blog is the old classic homepage on Geocities that has evolved into a social and communication medium that is way more versatile.

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Why Book Promotion and Publishing MUST Change - Part 1

Published
by
Ehren
on April 7, 2008
in Aspirations, Ponderings, books, marketing, technology and work
. 6 Comments

Despite being employed in the book industry, I work in the realm of the web and everything I do involves thinking about how someone would interact with a website and ultimately, the product. I have always speculated and continue to state that book publishing (not publishing in general) as we know it is on the brink of experiencing an evolution and perhaps even a revolution. A number of recent blogs and articles that I’ve read over the past week caused me to thoroughly ponder why the traditional model of book publishing is dying. After lots of thought and help from a couple of friends (also fellow industry professionals), here is part one of my storm session.

Note: Thanks goes out to Tammy Cabral and Erin Winzer for taking the time to read over my messy blogging. You may also find a few opposing viewpoints from one of them on occasion throughout this post.

1. The Promotion Process Begins BEFORE a Book is Published

Traditionally book publishing involved a select number of people working within a publishing house/company who ultimately decides what should and shouldn’t be published. A book would then usually go through a scheduled process of editing, copyediting, designing, and proofreading before arriving from the printer. The sales, marketing and publicity staff would typically have a marketing plan in place that would begin as soon as the book is on the shelves of bookstores. A list of titles would be created for each of two major retail seasons — Fall/Winter, and Spring/Summer.

I had originally questioned this when I was first starting off in the book industry and as I observed how publishing companies operated, I realized that they were focusing on seasons because of the retail sector and the fiscal year. This still works — but it is no longer as effective as it used to be. Why? Because the time between the acquisition of the book and the arrival at bookstores is a lost opportunity to promote forthcoming titles — opportunity costs.

Now during this period I should point out that marketing and publicity departments are usually busy taking care of the current season but this is a time where authors can be and should be establishing themselves so that they build credibility. The other solution could be to simply have a team of staff dedicated to pre-publication promotion but that would still require the co-operation of an author.

Erin Winzer likes the idea but is concerned about the potential of saturating the market. My point is that this would not be any major promotional campaign as this team would be focused on helping the author establish his or her presence in different areas. This is vital for first-time authors.

A final solution would be to simply scrap the entire two-season model and run on a continuous basis. Most publishers use the two-season model because they operate along the lines of a fiscal year but it really shouldn’t matter. Changing an operating budget is not difficult although it may pose a challenge for the government grants (more on that later.)

Food for thought: If all the shelves in the world were suddenly warped, would we not change the way we produced and formatted our books? We need to address the need of the customer, the reader — not what we think they want or should want.

Shelflife by Charles Trevelyan

2. An Author Who Isn’t Online and Contributing to the Internet Will Go Unnoticed

Fellow blogger Maki at Dosh Dosh has written an excellent post on Why Are You Giving Away Content For Free? and is quick to point out Chris Anderson’s article in Wired — Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.

“It is important to keep in mind the reasons why you are publishing blog post after blog post, all full of ideas and information and giving them away.

Do you know that you might generate more income by creating content and packaging it into the form of an affordable eBook, or perhaps a membership site? In terms of earning efficiency, premium/paid content might be a more lucrative venture than the act of simply giving away all your content away.

Chris Anderson recently suggested that ‘free’ is the future of business because the low cost of the digital web facilities the proliferation of free products, services or content. The web allows you to have greater flexibility in market definition: you can essentially give freebies to some, while selling to others.” — Dosh Dosh

I won’t deny that both Maki and Chris are speaking the truth with regards to free content and increasing sales, but I will point out that more importantly from a marketing perspective, contributing to the information available online is vital to establishing credibility, and more importantly, a following. Think about it — when a book is published, it is competing against an enormous amount of content available to the public. Authors are not competing against other authors and they aren’t competing against other books — they are competing against content.

How does one distinguish one piece of content from another? The author. He or she is the key to establishing credibility — but only by providing content that is relevant and genuine to themselves, to their visitors, and to their book(s). Blogging is only one step — outreach is the next.

Erin Winzer inquired as to whether or not a blog can generate sales and if it can all be tracked. In her own words:

The author is still Joe Smith off the street other than the fact that Joe Smith is now known as someone one who is talking on a particular topic. Also how many people will read Joe Smith’s blog – will it generate sales and can these sales be tracked?

The funny thing about blogging is that rather than relying on traditional media to establish someone as an expert on a topic, a blogger can become an expert as long as they provide solid and reliable content. As I stated before, outreach is vital and there is no better way than to reach out to like-minded people around the world through the Internet. I am not suggesting that an author go around hard selling their book online, rather I am suggesting that authors need to be interacting with common folk by bringing their perspective and allowing others the opportunity to relate. Whether it may be through a new idea or a totally different world they have created, people require something to relate to or comprehend before they can formulate some level of interest. This is natural human interaction — the most basic and noble form of marketing. Look at Squidoo, look at the forthcoming Google Knol — both of which are built upon the underlying purpose of providing free content that is associated with some level of recognizable source of credibility or authority on a subject.

Where my opinion differs is that I believe authors can develop this online presence on their own without relying on the infrastructure of Squidoo or Google Knol which really should just be considered extensions of their online presence rather than the foundation.

With regards to sales and tracking — technically yes and no. Just like all sales, nothing is absolute until the actual sale is made (wherever that may be) and while we can determine the level of interest on a blog, sales can only be tracked by point of purchase over time. Since blogging can be considered as both a short and long-term marketing campaign, blogs can change over time and thus so does the marketing campaign.

So fine — we get the idea that authors should be bloggers, now what?

As stated in 15 Trends to Watch in 2008 from Publishers Weekly:

“#4 Publishers will start acquiring specialized Web sites to get content for their books and to target niche audiences. By year-end, every major publisher will need to have an understanding of how to put a value on Web sites, because the old measures—namely, sales and profits—won’t necessarily be relevant and because the acquisitions will be smaller than what the companies would normally consider. The process will be similar to acquiring books, requiring a bit of imagination to see how the deals will pay off.” — Publisher’s Weekly

Honestly, I don’t even think publishers need to figure this out by the end of this year. The Globe and Mail just pointed out a blogging superstar in Japan, Mieko Kamakami, who is now a literary superstar — more likely than not — through a cellphone! (That subject to be touched on later)

Another insightful point:

“Joichi Ito, Internet entrepreneur and Technorati board member, says Japanese tend to view blogs more as exchanges with friends and a personal outlet than as news sources as Americans do, for discussing politics, technology and other issues.” — Globe and Mail

Sorry folks but any argument that an author should not have to blog is pretty sad. Marketing and publicity can do the best campaign they can for an author but if there is no credibility or some level of association with being credible — authors don’t talk to me about your book because I don’t know you. Yes that is blunt but it’s also the truth. Recently Random House offered a contract to Canadian Christian Landers for his blog on Stuff White People Like. What does that say?

Perhaps publishers will quickly begin to realize this and start spending more time online.

3. Destroy the Bestselling Model and Actually Help the Customer Already

Everything is a bestseller in some way, shape, or form. Why? Could we get anymore boring and fake? Usually when you step into a big bookseller, someone has paid for special placement in the “Bestseller List” or for a book cover to be facing outwards so that people can get a better view of it while browsing the immensely large store.

We don’t have time to go through everything - Photo Courtesy of Sharkatude

There is no such thing as a bestseller — there are only better sellers than others and we are simply talking about getting the right book to the right reader. Fellow blogger Erin Balser points out that she values the helpful bookseller and the independent bookstore over the big-box giants. Amazon is also a prime example of how helpful bookselling ultimately benefits both customers and publishers with fewer returns. Publishers should be taking those cues and stop paying for placement, and for goodness sake — stop the bestselling nonsense. The focus should NOT be on forcing people to pay attention to your book, but rather helping people find your book.

My colleague Erin Winzer who works as a publicist points out that this is unfortunately idealistic, and booksellers (especially big companies *cough* Indigo) rarely hand sells books.

What Erin points out is true but I can also point out that the whole idea behind helping the customer would likely be initially considered idealistic until we actually start changing our perception of what a customer wants. I’m not saying that we have to follow Amazon’s example because it’s never a good idea to do exactly what another company does — I am saying that it’s time to rethink our role. Hand selling books only goes so far, particularly with so many books out there but if we replicate the exchange of ideas that takes place with hand selling books — we can ultimately help people find what they are looking for — possibly with better success if we combine it with effective use of technology.

Nothing is bestselling — there is only the right book for the right reader. This may involve associating books through search engines, tags, related subject matter, similar books, similar authors, opinions, reviews, etc. These are all considered helpful tools. Tools that require investing time over money.

On the bookselling side, independent booksellers complain about the big box chains (like Chapters Indigo in Canada) and the lack of support from publishers yet these same independent booksellers fail to help people find the store. I have to confess that prior to working in the publishing industry, I did not even know about the small independent bookstores — and I grew up in Toronto! Yes that is sad, but doesn’t it demonstrate to you that the independent bookseller organization (CBA - Canadian Booksellers Association) has failed to communicate with people like myself? How can I find something if I don’t know about it?

For those who tell me that I should look one up … sorry folks, but I am not going to look at the Yellow Pages for a local bookstore and I definitely am not going to cross the city in order to buy a book just to support a local bookstore. What does this mean? It means that any local bookstore must begin to rethink their role. As I’ve pointed out a couple of months ago — Booksense.com which operates in the United States is an excellent way for people to find a local bookstore — but that is just the first of many steps.

******* Intermission *******

Taken from both the Quill and Quire and Erin Balser: HarperCollins just recently announced a new imprint that would focus on experimenting with a new model — one that focuses on reducing author advances and reducing returns. There is however the brief hint at publishing in many different formats (woopie…) My opinion? This is still a traditional publishing model, just one that is more frugal. Let’s try and be a little more innovative shall we?

Till next time! There are plenty of other issues that need rethinking so I’ve got plenty more to say but I’ll leave it there for now for the sake of readers and the fact that this is one really big post — stay tuned for part deux!

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Work, School, and Idea Survival

Published
by
Ehren
on February 6, 2008
in Aspirations, Interests, Unthinkables, blogging, books, design, fun, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Definitely a blogging slowdown:

1. Full-time work.

2. Taking three part-time courses (with a hearty amount of homework!)

3. Still lots of ideas in my head but no time to blog about them.

That’s probably why I like my twitter account. The blogosphere continues to evolve as a population’s behaviour shifts and twitter allows me to share my findings or short ideas.

What I’d like next? An Amazon Kindle so I can read whatever book I want (and surf the web) in a convenient, wireless way. Maybe even blog wirelessly.

For now: Still waiting in Canada…

Recently Chip Kidd had an interesting response to the Kindle. To say the least I was disappointed to hear that from a normally forward-thinking designer.

Two words to describe my initial opinion of Kidd’s response: wow and stubborn

When the printed book was first introduced — people were skeptical.  This is to be expected for change in general.  To dismiss the fact that there are actually many people who want to read books in another way is just a silly way of saying that you just don’t like it.

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One Aspect of Marketing that isn’t Really Marketing?

Published
by
Ehren
on December 4, 2007
in Aspirations, Interests, Mentions, Ponderings, Unthinkables, books, economics, marketing, policy and technology
. 0 Comments

I’m accustomed to reading a lot of business idea manifestos and the more or less revolutionary or evolutionary ideas of people such as Patricia Martin, Seth Godin and Chris Anderson. Whether it is the form of marketing in customer service or the theory behind the long tail, I find a lot of people are so focused on their core business that they really forget about their key business. I got talking with a colleague at work and I explained why I felt independent booksellers in Canada need to get their act together. It’s not that they are not great booksellers, it is just that they slow to realize that customer behaviour is shifting online, or they are reluctant to adapt to this trend.

The argument is that small booksellers do not have the resources for online marketing is valid and very true, and by no means am I suggesting that they take upon online marketing themselves when they are already short-staffed and short on resources. I however must point to the Canadian Booksellers Association and ask why the lack of vision? Why the lack of direction?

The first step towards an online presence IS NOT e-commerce. I think that is where independent booksellers are mistaken. What should be happening is a result-based campaign focused on bringing awareness of independent booksellers across Canada. How? I point to the American initiative — Booksense.com

I’m allowed to make fun of myself — I am in marketing. Sometimes I think this is true of all marketers when we’re so focused on our core business that we forget about our actual business.

Why does it work so well as a first step?

It’s all about making it easier for consumer to find you. Booksense.com just simply asks the visitor to type in their zip code and it automatically brings up the closest local independent bookstores. Is that so hard to create? Instead we have a difficult to navigate website.

My colleague who happens to be a very loyal supporter of independent booksellers argued that people should know about them and consumers should just go find out about them. Very true and ideally, this should work but here’s why it hasn’t worked and it will continue that way until independent booksellers change their strategy.

The first element that is working against an independent bookseller is brand and the fact that I can recognize only Chapters or Amazon indicates that it is one strike against them.

The second element is pricing and well, that’s just not going to be something that can be addressed in the industry.  Big retailers can under cut the pricing of any small retailer easily.  There just isn’t any way around that.  You can only differentiate in order to compete.

The third element is whether or not the consumer is aware. You may judge me however you may want — but I can honestly say that until I finished my publishing program in school a couple of years ago, I did not even know about independent booksellers. I understood that there may be a small bookstore here and there, but I had no idea that there were so many. My friend pointed out that there was a huge marketing campaign to promote buying from local independent bookstores so I should have known. Should — exactly the word that will cause a marketing plan to fail, and precisely how that marketing campaign failed me as a consumer by not equipping me with the freedom and options to shop elsewhere.

Did I notice it? — No.

Have I even heard of it? — No.

Where was it? Where was this campaign that was meant to encourage people to not buy from big box retail stores like Chapters Indigo? If I did not notice it, then think of how many people did not notice this campaign as well? If I did not know about independent booksellers then think of how many people how there that do not know about them as well?

Is it a bookseller’s role to promote themselves to every single consumer? — Definitely not!

Is it a bookseller’s role to ensure that they are easily found by all consumers? — Most definitely.

Ensuring that your business is easily found is my main point in this post. We are too focused on managing the processes of our daily lives and not looking forward. We are too busy focusing on who will buy it rather than focusing on who might be interested in it. We are so focused on the already converted — those who already love books that we forget about those who may just actually buy it if they knew more about it, but it requires more effort than simply promoting a book in the newspaper, hand selling a book, or hoping for a television interview.

We should spread some of that intense focus on to consumers who don’t view books as a high priority. Why? Just because they regard books as a second or third or lesser priority doesn’t mean that they are not a viable customer. Consumers are individuals of a great multi-faceted and multi-layered society, to reach them, we need to actually reach out in many different ways — or at the very least make it easy for these people to find us or the products we create. Is this marketing? To many it isn’t but it really is and ironically it is the most fundamental aspect.

Make life easier for them, help them find your local bookstore, and they may just happen to drop by and purchase a book. I don’t expect the independent booksellers to take action alone, but I do look towards the Canadian Bookseller Association for the leadership.

This was only the first step … there’s more but that’s enough out of me — for now.

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Finally pulled off Phase I

Published
by
Ehren
on October 4, 2007
in Interests, Mentions, Ponderings, books, ecommerce, marketing, technology, web 2.0 and work
. 0 Comments

Finally got around to pulling off Phase I of Dundurn’s website.  Check it out and let me know what you think … it’s work in progress … but it’s still something different.

I’m going to go now … and pass out … because I’ve been sick for the entire week … boo …

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Chapters Indigo and Social Media

Published
by
Ehren
on September 24, 2007
in Interests, Mentions, Ponderings, books, ecommerce, fun, marketing, reviews, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

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.

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