31–40 of 57 posts
Interesting that publishers would play ball with scribd, whose business model features selling access to pirated documents.
Could cstross or someone with equivalent knowledge tell us how this affects authors? If publishers like it someone must be getting screwed. Scribd is less a 'netflix' for books and more like a 'megadownload' for books, with the occasional academic paper for that 'we need bittorrent to get linux' veneer of respectability.
Sounds like it's free to browse, but the publisher gets paid if the book is actually read. I assume that publishers would pay authors at whatever rate they were already paying for ebooks.
After 24symbols, youboox, publie.net, izneo, oyster (and probably lots I do not recall), we have a new contender as the netflix/spotify for books? What makes scribd better or more challenging to amazon?
of all the companies you listed, Scribd is the only one I've heard of.
It would be great if public libraries offered this service (or one like it) to their patrons. My local library offers Overdrive Media Console [1], but the selection always seems to be lacking and the apps are subpar. An electronic rental service with books that people actually want to read would be killer and could save libraries money. My library system has cut back on inter-library requests because of shrinking fun…
My library co-op uses the same system, and while they do have books I want to read, they're often out of stock of the ebook. That irritates me enough to not borrow ebooks from them.
The potential for browsing will be increased. However, the actual user experience of browsing for books on the internet still pretty much sucks. Most places take the low-hanging fruit and have pretty good searching capability. However, searching and browsing are not the same experience. Recommendations (like from Amazon) is not browsing -- it's prompting based on intentional searching.
To do online browsing well, you have to come back to what the UX for browsing in a library or a bookstore feels like. You wander around spaces, and pick out books that catch your attention. Illustrations on book covers means a lot more. And for people like me that process information kinesthetically, the spatial relationships of the books (where it is on the shelf, which shelf it is on, how many steps it takes to go down one aisle, how wide are the aisles in relation to how far I can stretch my arms, etc.) matters a lot more.
I've toyed with the notion of creating a dedicated Android app to prototype this idea. That is, creating an online browsing experience to replace my bookshelf so that I can show it off for guests. Some of the lessons that can be extracted from creating that would apply to an online browsing experience -- or a physical retail experience that includes an online component.
Looking at how Scribd redid their site to support this, I think they understand some of the issues. But in the end, it looks more like they are copying Netflix rather than really rethinking at a more fundamental level of what "browsing" means as an experience.
It would be great if public libraries offered this service (or one like it) to their patrons. My local library offers Overdrive Media Console [1], but the selection always seems to be lacking and the apps are subpar. An electronic rental service with books that people actually want to read would be killer and could save libraries money. My library system has cut back on inter-library requests because of shrinking fun…
My library co-op uses the same system, and while they do have books I want to read, they're often out of stock of the ebook. That irritates me enough to not borrow ebooks from them.
Either way: given that many public libraries offer ebook rentals for free, Scribd should be marketing to them rather than directly to customers.
I generally like where this going, though I disagree with the assertion that "it will be easier to browse". The potential for browsing will be increased. However, the actual user experience of browsing for books on the internet still pretty much sucks. Most places take the low-hanging fruit and have pretty good searching capability. However, searching and browsing are not the same experience. Recommendations (like fr…
Typically books are arranged alphabetically and thematically. Some times, shelf placement is a variable in marketing.
When you take shelf placement as marketing to it's logical extreme, you end up with something like Amazon -- where you've optimized for conversions rather than overall user experience. As any Sales / Marketing person can tell you, best experience != most conversions.
People are indecisive when confronted with many choices.
I could see browsing as a great ideal for subscription services though. Amazon and most e-commerce is a bad comparison though, as browsing is generally bad for transactional businesses (due to reasons above). This is yet another reason why traditional book stores are at a disadvantage.
I just signed up for it but it doesn't look very good to me. Not sure what's wrong. http://i.imgur.com/6wMjmeI.png Edit: tried the mobile app and it looks great there
It looks like they're using a custom font with scrambled letters (essentially a caesar cipher) and your browser isn't loading/using that font. This is probably an attempt at DRM.
Finally Scribd found a business model. I never understood what their value proposition was.
First they invented DRM for HTML5. Now they've figured out who to sell it to.
$8.99 is too high for this to be worth while for most readers, IMO. I'm a pretty regular reader and I'm lucky to get through 1 and half books a month. Most books I buy are under this price (around $5)... I can sample from Amazon before I buy, so I don't see the benefit here unless you're a power reader and most people are not.
1.5 books a month is probably higher than the national average, but you'd be surprised how voracious a lot of readers are. I probably read 2 books a week, and I'm by no means a power reader by the standards of those who really are. I know quite a few people who regularly plow through 5 a week. Especially fiction readers and readers of "snackable" nonfiction (Jon Krakauer, Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, etc.). Power…