A young man I recognized came out of a study room in the Reference area on the lower level, and asked for his library card back. I knew his face; he's probably been coming to the Library for at least a couple of years that I've been here.
He told me that I'd helped him with research for his Science Fair project.
"How'd you do?" I wondered.
"Reached the national semi-finals." He beamed, then thanked me.
That is the reward of being a librarian.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Amid price war, rationing
Boulder Book Store had hoped to buy discounted bestsellers from Walmart, Target and Amazon.
Two weeks after an online book price war broke out among giant retailers, the three stores involved—Walmart, Amazon and Target—are limiting the number of copies their customers can buy.
The limits will stop other booksellers from scooping up cheap copies in large quantities and reselling them.
Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colo., said he had intended to buy as many as 70 copies of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" from Walmart.com, Target.com or Amazon, because their prices are "more than $5 cheaper than what we can get it for from the publisher, Harper.
Mr. Kashkashian said he was surprised to see that the three retailers were limiting the quantities sold. "We're a big store, and if a customer wanted to order 100 copies of anything, we'd sell it to them," he said.
Well, nice argument, but that would have the big three subsidizing the smaller stores; whatever the merits or demerits, those three are not likely to provide such subsidies.
Raul Vazquez, CEO of Walmart.com, said in an interview this week that the company's book promotion had resulted in brisk sales of the coming titles, and had also boosted sales of other products. He declined to reveal any figures.
Joel Bines of consultancy AlixPartners LLP said retailers commonly ration loss-leader promotions to stop competitors from buying up the merchandise. In the book promotion, Mr. Bines noted, some independent booksellers surely would purchase Wal-Mart's books in bulk if possible at their below-wholesale price. He said some of the books would also probably end up on eBay, offered by speculators.
"It's to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak," Mr. Bines said of the limits. "They are losing money on every item they sell at this price, so they want to make sure the items actually go to customers, who might then buy something else."
Consider the alternative: in Europe, book price discounting is not allowed, by law.
In Europe, the price war raging among America's biggest book retailers has offered new validation to an age-old approach to the business: price fixing.
In much of Europe, the discount-pricing battle that has erupted among Wal-Mart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. could never happen because most major publishing markets, with the exception of the U.K., are bolstered by laws requiring all bookstores, online retailers included, to sell books at prices set in stone by their publishers.
Nowhere is the fixed-price tradition as deeply rooted as in Germany, a nation with a book-rich culture that stretches back to Gutenberg in the 15th century.
Many in German attribute the country's thriving literary and publishing scene to a system that outlaws the discounting of virtually all new books for 18 months. The system protects independent booksellers and smaller publishers from giant rivals that could discount their way to more market share. Along with some 7,000 bookshops, nearly 14,000 German publishers remain in business. Many are of modest size, like Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag, which publishes the work of this year's Nobel laureate, German-Romanian writer Herta Mueller.
Two weeks after an online book price war broke out among giant retailers, the three stores involved—Walmart, Amazon and Target—are limiting the number of copies their customers can buy.
The limits will stop other booksellers from scooping up cheap copies in large quantities and reselling them.
Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colo., said he had intended to buy as many as 70 copies of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" from Walmart.com, Target.com or Amazon, because their prices are "more than $5 cheaper than what we can get it for from the publisher, Harper.
Mr. Kashkashian said he was surprised to see that the three retailers were limiting the quantities sold. "We're a big store, and if a customer wanted to order 100 copies of anything, we'd sell it to them," he said.
Well, nice argument, but that would have the big three subsidizing the smaller stores; whatever the merits or demerits, those three are not likely to provide such subsidies.
Raul Vazquez, CEO of Walmart.com, said in an interview this week that the company's book promotion had resulted in brisk sales of the coming titles, and had also boosted sales of other products. He declined to reveal any figures.
Joel Bines of consultancy AlixPartners LLP said retailers commonly ration loss-leader promotions to stop competitors from buying up the merchandise. In the book promotion, Mr. Bines noted, some independent booksellers surely would purchase Wal-Mart's books in bulk if possible at their below-wholesale price. He said some of the books would also probably end up on eBay, offered by speculators.
"It's to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak," Mr. Bines said of the limits. "They are losing money on every item they sell at this price, so they want to make sure the items actually go to customers, who might then buy something else."
Consider the alternative: in Europe, book price discounting is not allowed, by law.
In Europe, the price war raging among America's biggest book retailers has offered new validation to an age-old approach to the business: price fixing.
In much of Europe, the discount-pricing battle that has erupted among Wal-Mart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. could never happen because most major publishing markets, with the exception of the U.K., are bolstered by laws requiring all bookstores, online retailers included, to sell books at prices set in stone by their publishers.
Nowhere is the fixed-price tradition as deeply rooted as in Germany, a nation with a book-rich culture that stretches back to Gutenberg in the 15th century.
Many in German attribute the country's thriving literary and publishing scene to a system that outlaws the discounting of virtually all new books for 18 months. The system protects independent booksellers and smaller publishers from giant rivals that could discount their way to more market share. Along with some 7,000 bookshops, nearly 14,000 German publishers remain in business. Many are of modest size, like Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag, which publishes the work of this year's Nobel laureate, German-Romanian writer Herta Mueller.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Lawyerese goes Galactic, Contracts try to master Universe
Decked out in sequined black and gold dresses, Anne Harrison and the other women in her Bulgarian folk-singing group were lined up to try out for NBC's "America's Got Talent" TV show when they noticed peculiar wording in the release papers they were asked to sign.
Any of their actions that day last February, the contract said, could be "edited, in all media, throughout the universe, in perpetuity."
She and the other singers, many of whom are librarians in the Washington, D.C., area, briefly contemplated whether they should give away the rights to hurtling their images and voices across the galaxies forever. Then, like thousands of other contestants, they signed their names.
Anne Harrison
These are the librarians in question.
Any of their actions that day last February, the contract said, could be "edited, in all media, throughout the universe, in perpetuity."
She and the other singers, many of whom are librarians in the Washington, D.C., area, briefly contemplated whether they should give away the rights to hurtling their images and voices across the galaxies forever. Then, like thousands of other contestants, they signed their names.
Anne Harrison
These are the librarians in question.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Roth on Roth
This caught my eye; question and answer from an interview conducted by the Wall Street Journal with Philip Roth:
Q. Are you online, and if so, what sites do you visit?
A. Yes, but I don't use it except to buy groceries and books. I buy from FreshDirect. I also use Amazon, and I buy a lot of used books from AbeBooks and Alibris. It's wonderful when you want to find something obscure and there it is for $3.98. It's the greatest book bazaar that has ever existed.
Q. Are you online, and if so, what sites do you visit?
A. Yes, but I don't use it except to buy groceries and books. I buy from FreshDirect. I also use Amazon, and I buy a lot of used books from AbeBooks and Alibris. It's wonderful when you want to find something obscure and there it is for $3.98. It's the greatest book bazaar that has ever existed.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Stephen King E-Book delayed
Stephen King's publisher is keeping the e-book edition of his novel "Under the Dome" under wraps until the day before Christmas, as tensions mount between book publishers and retailers over the crucial issue of pricing industry blockbusters.
Aiming to preserve the value of the hardcover edition, Scribner, an imprint of CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster publishing arm, is delaying the electronic-book publication of the King thriller until Dec. 24, or six weeks after the $35 hardcover hits the bookstores on Nov. 10.
In an interview, Mr. King said that he wanted to delay the e-book edition in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.
"I never thought we'd see people preordering a copy for $8.98," he said. "My thinking was to give bookstores a chance to make some money."
Mr. King, who described himself as a happy owner of Amazon's e-book reader Kindle, noted that the discounting by the three major retailers means that he will likely sell more copies of "Under the Dome."
However, he expressed concern for the impact the sharp discounting may have on other writers--established authors as well as up-and-comers--saying, "Who is going to buy a book for $25 when you can preorder a best seller for $9?" He noted that at $9, a new hardcover will be cheaper than the later fancy paperback edition.
"All the guys in ties want to talk about is whether a new delivery system is going to work," he added. "Nobody seems to care about the book."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Barnes & Noble Plans E-Book Reader
Barnes & Noble Inc. said it is releasing a $259 electronic-book reader, which it will begin shipping in late November. The device, called the Nook, will compete directly with Amazon.com Inc.'s $259 Kindle and a host of digital reading devices from Sony Corp. and others.
Competition is growing between providers; this market should grow, delivering new products to consumers, though it remains to be seen how many people will gravitate toward e-books. One market segment with great potential wopuld appear to be new readers, youngsters for whom computing is a part of growing up, always present, and not a new development.
Barnes & Noble's new e-book reader, the Nook
The Nook, which runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, boasts a 6-inch e-paper display from E-Ink Corp. for reading and a smaller color-touch screen for control and typing. It features 3G cellphone and Wi-Fi wireless connections to download books from the retailer's online bookstore.
Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook in Manhattan at an event well attended by CEOs of many of the industry's biggest publishing houses. Those connections helped the nation's largest bookstore chain win a concession: the ability for buyers of some e-books to lend their purchases to friends for as many as 14 days at a time. The shared books can be read on other Nooks, cellphones or computers, but a single copy of a book can only be read on one device at a time and can only be lent one time. Most other commercial e-book stores, including Amazon's Kindle store, don't allow sharing e-books.
In due time the restrictions will fade away, as they have on other media.
Several publishers, who asked not to be identified, said that they haven't yet decided on whether to allow Barnes & Noble to lend their e-books.
However, W. Drake McFeely, president of W.W. Norton & Co., said, "You can lend a physical book, so as long as it's sequential, I'm fine with it."
Precisely.
Digits
Barnes & Noble said it would also offer subscriptions to more than 20 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times—and eventually expects to offer, in digital form, subscriptions to every major U.S. daily.
The Nook also features integration with Barnes & Noble's retail stores. Users who bring the device into the store will find that special offers, content and discounts pop up on the Nook's screen. Eventually, the company says, customers will be able to read entire e-books for free inside the physical store.
As one can with the physical book.
video: First Look at Barnes & Noble Nook E-Book Reader
Mitchell Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble, said that he expects the Nook to help build traffic in the stores after it goes on sale. "What other device can you road test in a store?" he asked. "This could be our biggest traffic builder for the holidays."
Barnes & Noble also announced that it was shifting its e-book copyright-protection system to software from Adobe Systems Inc. That could usher in a day when protected e-books can be read more easily across many different devices. The e-book store used by Sony also uses Adobe's copyright-protection software, but Amazon still uses a proprietary format for Kindle books.
The e-equivalent to PDFs.
Competition is growing between providers; this market should grow, delivering new products to consumers, though it remains to be seen how many people will gravitate toward e-books. One market segment with great potential wopuld appear to be new readers, youngsters for whom computing is a part of growing up, always present, and not a new development.
Barnes & Noble's new e-book reader, the Nook
The Nook, which runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, boasts a 6-inch e-paper display from E-Ink Corp. for reading and a smaller color-touch screen for control and typing. It features 3G cellphone and Wi-Fi wireless connections to download books from the retailer's online bookstore.
Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook in Manhattan at an event well attended by CEOs of many of the industry's biggest publishing houses. Those connections helped the nation's largest bookstore chain win a concession: the ability for buyers of some e-books to lend their purchases to friends for as many as 14 days at a time. The shared books can be read on other Nooks, cellphones or computers, but a single copy of a book can only be read on one device at a time and can only be lent one time. Most other commercial e-book stores, including Amazon's Kindle store, don't allow sharing e-books.
In due time the restrictions will fade away, as they have on other media.
Several publishers, who asked not to be identified, said that they haven't yet decided on whether to allow Barnes & Noble to lend their e-books.
However, W. Drake McFeely, president of W.W. Norton & Co., said, "You can lend a physical book, so as long as it's sequential, I'm fine with it."
Precisely.
Digits
Barnes & Noble said it would also offer subscriptions to more than 20 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times—and eventually expects to offer, in digital form, subscriptions to every major U.S. daily.
The Nook also features integration with Barnes & Noble's retail stores. Users who bring the device into the store will find that special offers, content and discounts pop up on the Nook's screen. Eventually, the company says, customers will be able to read entire e-books for free inside the physical store.
As one can with the physical book.
video: First Look at Barnes & Noble Nook E-Book Reader
Mitchell Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble, said that he expects the Nook to help build traffic in the stores after it goes on sale. "What other device can you road test in a store?" he asked. "This could be our biggest traffic builder for the holidays."
Barnes & Noble also announced that it was shifting its e-book copyright-protection system to software from Adobe Systems Inc. That could usher in a day when protected e-books can be read more easily across many different devices. The e-book store used by Sony also uses Adobe's copyright-protection software, but Amazon still uses a proprietary format for Kindle books.
The e-equivalent to PDFs.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Target Joins Book Price War
A third discounter joins the fray.
Media & Marketing - WSJ
October 20, 2009
Target Joins Book Price War
By ANN ZIMMERMAN
Target Corp. joined the online book price wars, disclosing Monday it is slashing the prices of seven highly anticipated hardcover books available for pre-order on its Web site.
The Minneapolis-based retailer is charging $8.99 for the books, matching the price that Walmart.com has set for 10 expected best sellers. Walmart countered Monday evening by lowering the price of several of the books on its Web site by a penny to $8.98.
In the next few days, Target will expand its list of discounted books to the same 10, adding Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue"; Jim Butcher's "First Lord's Fury" and Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna." The retailer said it needs the added time to add these books and their prices to its Web site.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fired the first salvo in the price war last week when it first cut the prices on 10 books to $10, saying it plans to be the low-price leader in electronic commerce. Amazon.com Inc. quickly matched the $10 price on the same list of books. Walmart then chopped the price to $9, which Amazon again matched.
The recent penny-at-a-time moves suggest no further cuts. "It remains to be seen if we will go lower if the competition slashes prices further," said Target spokeswoman Kelly Basgen. "At the moment we are only matching what others are doing, but we're watching closely. We want to remain competitive."
The publishing industry is also watching warily to see if the price war will have lasting impact on book pricing and the contracts that publisher sign with authors. What is still unclear is whether this is a short-term promotion on Walmart's part, or whether Walmart.com intends to use cheap books to challenge Amazon as the Web's leading retailer
Media & Marketing - WSJ
October 20, 2009
Target Joins Book Price War
By ANN ZIMMERMAN
Target Corp. joined the online book price wars, disclosing Monday it is slashing the prices of seven highly anticipated hardcover books available for pre-order on its Web site.
The Minneapolis-based retailer is charging $8.99 for the books, matching the price that Walmart.com has set for 10 expected best sellers. Walmart countered Monday evening by lowering the price of several of the books on its Web site by a penny to $8.98.
In the next few days, Target will expand its list of discounted books to the same 10, adding Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue"; Jim Butcher's "First Lord's Fury" and Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna." The retailer said it needs the added time to add these books and their prices to its Web site.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fired the first salvo in the price war last week when it first cut the prices on 10 books to $10, saying it plans to be the low-price leader in electronic commerce. Amazon.com Inc. quickly matched the $10 price on the same list of books. Walmart then chopped the price to $9, which Amazon again matched.
The recent penny-at-a-time moves suggest no further cuts. "It remains to be seen if we will go lower if the competition slashes prices further," said Target spokeswoman Kelly Basgen. "At the moment we are only matching what others are doing, but we're watching closely. We want to remain competitive."
The publishing industry is also watching warily to see if the price war will have lasting impact on book pricing and the contracts that publisher sign with authors. What is still unclear is whether this is a short-term promotion on Walmart's part, or whether Walmart.com intends to use cheap books to challenge Amazon as the Web's leading retailer
Monday, October 19, 2009
Questions
A phone call early this morning was about language usage and grammar. Usage of nor versus or. How is traumatic spelled? Should it be modified with very? And the patron being Mrs. Connolly, the telephone number of Staples in Lawrence?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Transgender
First reference question I've ever had about transgender. Sitting at the Reference Desk in late afternoon, I was asked for books on transgender. The patron spoke softly. For a moment I was unsure I'd heard her question, or perhaps was nonplussed, but, momentarily, my librarian self engaged.
I searched for the term transgender itself, but the only result was an art book:
Mirror images : women, surrealism, and self-representation [Q 704.042 M]. It includes this entry: Whitney Chadwick -- "Vous pour moi?" : Marcel Duchamp and transgender coupling, but that was not what she was looking for; rather, she wanted biographical works. I found two that worked:
Colapinto, John. (2000). As nature made him : the boy who was raised as a girl. New York: HarperCollins.
Scholinski, Daphne. (1997). The last time I wore a dress. New York: Riverhead Books.
I searched for the term transgender itself, but the only result was an art book:
Mirror images : women, surrealism, and self-representation [Q 704.042 M]. It includes this entry: Whitney Chadwick -- "Vous pour moi?" : Marcel Duchamp and transgender coupling, but that was not what she was looking for; rather, she wanted biographical works. I found two that worked:
Colapinto, John. (2000). As nature made him : the boy who was raised as a girl. New York: HarperCollins.
Scholinski, Daphne. (1997). The last time I wore a dress. New York: Riverhead Books.
Wal-Mart Strafes Amazon in Book War
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a brash price war against Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday, saying it would sell 10 hotly anticipated new books for just $10 apiece through its online site, Walmart.com.
That was just the beginning.
Hours later, Amazon matched the $10 price, squaring off in a battle for low-price and e-commerce leadership heading into the crucial holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart soon fired back with a promise to drop its prices to $9 by Friday morning -- and made good on that vow by early evening Thursday.
Wal-Mart said the splashy move to discount pre-orders of popular books such as Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" was part of a larger strategy to establish Walmart.com as the biggest and cheapest online retailer.
Going rouge cheap.
"If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web,' it is going to be Walmart.com," said Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez in an interview. "Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."
Walmart has such a strong capital base that its website will do the same to e-commerce as it did to commerce.
Wal-Mart's $10 promotion applies to the top 10 books coming out in November but the company is also selling 200 best-sellers for 50% of their list price.
Who eats that 50% discount? Consumers get lower prices, someone doesn't get that revenue (or profit).
The price war sent shivers through the publishing world. Wal-Mart's move, and similarly low prices for electronic books, may ultimately condition consumers to expect new titles to cost $10, a price that would force the publishing industry to re-scale its entire business, including the advances paid to writers.
"The endgame is rather scary for authors," said one book executive.
Publishing is the latest industry to be forced to change, rather than to decide how to change.
Some big authors, however, are looking on the bright side. Dean Koontz, whose soon-to-be released novel "Breathless" is being discounted to $10 from $28, said that he thinks the discounting may prove a good thing for the authors involved.
"Any time people are fighting over your work it's a good thing, especially when you've worked all those years hoping it would be fought over," he said. "I don't think this is going to be a long-term thing. Rather, it sounds like a promotional strategy designed to call attention to Wal-Mart's decision to enter the digital marketplace more heartily than in the past."
Perhaps. But expecting discounting becomes an ingrained shopping expectation.
Mr. Koontz said that Crown Books Corp., a now-defunct book chain that grew to 170 stores in only seven years after launching in 1977, paved the way for book discounting. "They're no longer with us, and perhaps that tells us something, but after they started to discount books hardcover sales simply exploded."
Fascinating point, and logical: lower prices stimulate shopping.
Mr. Koontz said he's more worried about the independent bookstores. Although most limit their stock of best-sellers, a price war on the most popular books may hurt.
James Patterson, whose coming novel, "I, Alex Cross," is being discounted from $27.99 to $10, said he was happy to be in Wal-Mart's top 10. However, he warned any industry that sets low price points may later have a difficult time re-establishing those prices. "Obviously e-books have gotten this thing going," said Mr. Patterson. "E-books are terrific and here to stay. But I think that people need to think through the repercussions....But I'm not taking sides....I'm not the endangered species here."
No, Patterson is not endangered. His new book has 516 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316018784, 179 on order), and 145 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316043731, 14 on order) in the Nassau County OPAC (excluding Great Neck, which has 48 holds on 1 copy, and 14 copies on order, and Syosset, which has 86 holds on 1 copy, and 10 on order: these two libraries have independent OPACs).
Wal-Mart said it wasn't trying to match the price of electronic books. Still, the $10 price tag coincides with the $9.99 that Amazon.com charges for its Kindle e-reader best-sellers.
Coincidence?
Wal-Mart declined to discuss whether it was losing money on the $10 book promotion, which includes free shipping. But the answer is almost certainly yes. Retailers traditionally pay half the list price for a hardcover book. Assuming that's the case with Wal-Mart, its $10 sale price on "Under the Dome" represents a 71% discount of the $35 cover price, which suggests the discounter will lose $7 to $7.50 on every copy it sells.
Loss leader to establish its e-commerce site.
Ten dollars for a hardcover book is a slashing of margins to the bone," said Richard Curtis, a New York literary agent and e-book publisher.
And into the bone, as it were.
Diana Abbott, manager of the Bookworm, an independent bookstore in Omaha, Neb., said that some independents will likely lose some business on the titles involved. "We've been fighting deep discounting for a long time, although $10 is obviously an extreme," said Ms. Abbott. "But there is a strong element of loyalty to independents....We'll survive this."
There is loyalty, but, will it be sufficient?
Wal-Mart is far and away the planet's largest mass merchant with annual sales topping $400 billion. It doesn't release its on-line sales, but analysts say they trail those of Amazon, which notched $19.2 billion in sales last fiscal year, a 29% increase.
Well put: the planet's largest.
That was just the beginning.
Hours later, Amazon matched the $10 price, squaring off in a battle for low-price and e-commerce leadership heading into the crucial holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart soon fired back with a promise to drop its prices to $9 by Friday morning -- and made good on that vow by early evening Thursday.Wal-Mart said the splashy move to discount pre-orders of popular books such as Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" was part of a larger strategy to establish Walmart.com as the biggest and cheapest online retailer.
Going rouge cheap.
"If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web,' it is going to be Walmart.com," said Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez in an interview. "Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."
Walmart has such a strong capital base that its website will do the same to e-commerce as it did to commerce.
Wal-Mart's $10 promotion applies to the top 10 books coming out in November but the company is also selling 200 best-sellers for 50% of their list price.
Who eats that 50% discount? Consumers get lower prices, someone doesn't get that revenue (or profit).
The price war sent shivers through the publishing world. Wal-Mart's move, and similarly low prices for electronic books, may ultimately condition consumers to expect new titles to cost $10, a price that would force the publishing industry to re-scale its entire business, including the advances paid to writers.
"The endgame is rather scary for authors," said one book executive.
Publishing is the latest industry to be forced to change, rather than to decide how to change.
Some big authors, however, are looking on the bright side. Dean Koontz, whose soon-to-be released novel "Breathless" is being discounted to $10 from $28, said that he thinks the discounting may prove a good thing for the authors involved.
"Any time people are fighting over your work it's a good thing, especially when you've worked all those years hoping it would be fought over," he said. "I don't think this is going to be a long-term thing. Rather, it sounds like a promotional strategy designed to call attention to Wal-Mart's decision to enter the digital marketplace more heartily than in the past."
Perhaps. But expecting discounting becomes an ingrained shopping expectation.
Mr. Koontz said that Crown Books Corp., a now-defunct book chain that grew to 170 stores in only seven years after launching in 1977, paved the way for book discounting. "They're no longer with us, and perhaps that tells us something, but after they started to discount books hardcover sales simply exploded."
Fascinating point, and logical: lower prices stimulate shopping.
Mr. Koontz said he's more worried about the independent bookstores. Although most limit their stock of best-sellers, a price war on the most popular books may hurt.
James Patterson, whose coming novel, "I, Alex Cross," is being discounted from $27.99 to $10, said he was happy to be in Wal-Mart's top 10. However, he warned any industry that sets low price points may later have a difficult time re-establishing those prices. "Obviously e-books have gotten this thing going," said Mr. Patterson. "E-books are terrific and here to stay. But I think that people need to think through the repercussions....But I'm not taking sides....I'm not the endangered species here."
No, Patterson is not endangered. His new book has 516 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316018784, 179 on order), and 145 holds on first copy returned of 1 copy (ISBN 9780316043731, 14 on order) in the Nassau County OPAC (excluding Great Neck, which has 48 holds on 1 copy, and 14 copies on order, and Syosset, which has 86 holds on 1 copy, and 10 on order: these two libraries have independent OPACs).
Wal-Mart said it wasn't trying to match the price of electronic books. Still, the $10 price tag coincides with the $9.99 that Amazon.com charges for its Kindle e-reader best-sellers.
Coincidence?
Wal-Mart declined to discuss whether it was losing money on the $10 book promotion, which includes free shipping. But the answer is almost certainly yes. Retailers traditionally pay half the list price for a hardcover book. Assuming that's the case with Wal-Mart, its $10 sale price on "Under the Dome" represents a 71% discount of the $35 cover price, which suggests the discounter will lose $7 to $7.50 on every copy it sells.
Loss leader to establish its e-commerce site.
Ten dollars for a hardcover book is a slashing of margins to the bone," said Richard Curtis, a New York literary agent and e-book publisher.
And into the bone, as it were.
Diana Abbott, manager of the Bookworm, an independent bookstore in Omaha, Neb., said that some independents will likely lose some business on the titles involved. "We've been fighting deep discounting for a long time, although $10 is obviously an extreme," said Ms. Abbott. "But there is a strong element of loyalty to independents....We'll survive this."
There is loyalty, but, will it be sufficient?
Wal-Mart is far and away the planet's largest mass merchant with annual sales topping $400 billion. It doesn't release its on-line sales, but analysts say they trail those of Amazon, which notched $19.2 billion in sales last fiscal year, a 29% increase.
Well put: the planet's largest.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
So You Want to Borrow an E-Book
Borrowing a library book is now possible without ever visiting a physical branch.
According to OverDrive, the largest supplier of e-books to public libraries, about 9,000 libraries offer digital audio books and about 5,400 of them offer e-books as well. E-book selection is still small compared to print collections, but they are growing. Other companies that distribute books to libraries include Ebrary and NetLibrary.
For the most part, library e-books are not yet compatible on Amazon’s Kindles. Amazon could shift course and embrace ePub, but an Amazon spokesman said the company would not comment on future moves in that direction.
Although there are some collections that are available in subscriptions that permit unlimited access to books by multiple users, most e-books are treated like printed ones: only one user can access it at a time. That means there can be waits for digital books just like there are for print books. On the other hand, since so few people know about the library e-book collections or want to use them, the waits for e-books are often much shorter than for printed editions.
For now.
Since borrowing an e-book does not require a trip to a physical library, readers can download at any time of day or night.
Open virtually all the time.
Below are some links to the digital e-book and audio book collections of various libraries around the country.
According to OverDrive, the largest supplier of e-books to public libraries, about 9,000 libraries offer digital audio books and about 5,400 of them offer e-books as well. E-book selection is still small compared to print collections, but they are growing. Other companies that distribute books to libraries include Ebrary and NetLibrary.
For the most part, library e-books are not yet compatible on Amazon’s Kindles. Amazon could shift course and embrace ePub, but an Amazon spokesman said the company would not comment on future moves in that direction.
Although there are some collections that are available in subscriptions that permit unlimited access to books by multiple users, most e-books are treated like printed ones: only one user can access it at a time. That means there can be waits for digital books just like there are for print books. On the other hand, since so few people know about the library e-book collections or want to use them, the waits for e-books are often much shorter than for printed editions.
For now.
Since borrowing an e-book does not require a trip to a physical library, readers can download at any time of day or night.
Open virtually all the time.
Below are some links to the digital e-book and audio book collections of various libraries around the country.
New York Public Library
E-book titles: 18,300
Brooklyn Public Library
E-book titles: 4,083
Boston Public Library
E-book titles: 3,636
Las Vegas Clark County Library
E-book titles: 5,000
Lee County Library, Florida
E-book titles: 7,000
Indianapolis-Marion County Library:
E-book titles: 1,300
BookFlix (available in 500 public library systems, including the New York Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, the Dallas Public Library and the District of Columbia Public Library)
A collection of children’s books and complimentary videos from Scholastic. These are subscription based, so multiple readers can access the collection at the same time.Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending
Kate Lambert, 19, a student at Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey, Fla., is an avid user of e-books offered for loan by her county library system.
October 15, 2009
Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending
By MOTOKO RICH
Kate Lambert recalls using her library card just once or twice throughout her childhood. Now, she uses it several times a month.
The lure? Electronic books she can download to her laptop. Beginning earlier this year, Ms. Lambert, a 19-year-old community college student in New Port Richey, Fla., borrowed volumes in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold and a vampire novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, without ever visiting an actual branch.
“I can just go online and type my library card number in and look through all the books that they have,” said Ms. Lambert, who usually downloads from the comfort of her bedroom. And, she added, “It’s all for free.”
Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves.
The idea is to capture borrowers who might not otherwise use the library, as well as to give existing customers the opportunity to try new formats.
“People still think of libraries as old dusty books on shelves, and it’s a perception we’re always trying to fight,” said Michael Colford, director of information technology at the Boston Public Library. “If we don’t provide this material for them, they are just going to stop using the library altogether.”
About 5,400 public libraries now offer e-books, as well as digitally downloadable audio books. The collections are still tiny compared with print troves. The New York Public Library, for example, has about 18,300 e-book titles, compared with 860,500 in circulating print titles, and purchases of digital books represent less than 1 percent of the library’s overall acquisition budget.
But circulation is expanding quickly. The number of checkouts has grown to more than 1 million so far this year from 607,275 in all of 2007, according to OverDrive, a large provider of e-books to public libraries. NetLibrary, another provider of e-books to about 5,000 public libraries and a division of OCLC, a nonprofit library service organization, has seen circulation of e-books and digital audio books rise 21 percent over the past year.
Together with the Google books settlement — which the parties are modifying to satisfy the objections of the Department of Justice and others — the expansion of e-books into libraries heralds a future in which more reading will be done digitally.
“As young people become used to reading virtually everything online,” said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, “that is going to propel a change in terms of readership of e-books rather than readership of physical books.”
For now, the expansion will be slowed partly because, with few exceptions, e-books in libraries cannot be read on Amazon’s Kindle, the best-selling electronic reader, or on Apple’s iPhone, which has rapidly become a popular device for reading e-books. Most library editions are compatible with the Sony Reader, computers and a handful of other mobile devices.
Most digital books in libraries are treated like printed ones: only one borrower can check out an e-book at a time, and for popular titles, patrons must wait in line just as they do for physical books. After two to three weeks, the e-book automatically expires from a reader’s account.
But some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.
“I don’t have to get in my car, go to the library, look at the book, check it out,” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, which publishes authors like Janet Evanovich, Augusten Burroughs and Jeffrey Eugenides. “Instead, I’m sitting in the comfort of my living room and can say, ‘Oh, that looks interesting’ and download it.”
As digital collections grow, Mr. Sargent said he feared a world in which “pretty soon you’re not paying for anything.” Partly because of such concerns, Macmillan does not allow its e-books to be offered in public libraries.
Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King and Bob Woodward, has also refrained from distributing its e-books to public libraries. “We have not found a business model that works for us and our authors,” said Adam Rothberg, a spokesman.
For now, the advent of e-book borrowing has not threatened physical libraries by siphoning away visitors because the recession has driven so many new users seeking free resources through library doors. And in some cases, few library patrons seem to know that e-book collections even exist.
In the Brooklyn Public Library system recently, eight people were waiting for three digital copies of “The Lost Symbol,” Dan Brown’s follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” while 715 people were waiting for 526 print copies.
Some librarians suggest that because digital books never wear out, take up no shelf space and could, in theory, be read by multiple people at the same time, the purchasing model for e-books should be different than it is for print.
Pam Sandlian Smith, library director of the Rangeview Library District, which serves a suburban community north of Denver, said that instead of purchasing a set number of digital copies of a book, she would prefer to buy one copy and pay a nominal licensing fee each time a patron downloaded it.
Publishers, inevitably, are nervous about allowing too much of their intellectual property to be offered free. Brian Murray, the chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, said Ms. Smith’s proposal was “not a sustainable model for publishers or authors.”
Some librarians object to the current pricing model because they often pay more for e-books than do consumers who buy them on Amazon or in Sony’s online store. Publishers generally charge the same price for e-books as they do for print editions, but online retailers subsidize the sale price of best sellers by marking them down to $9.99.
“ ‘The Lost Symbol’ is $9.99 on the Sony Reader book page, and I just paid $29.99 for that for the library,” said Robin Bradford, the collection development librarian at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library. Ms. Bradford said she would consider buying additional digital copies if the price were lower. But “to buy nonphysical copies at the same price,” she said, “I just won’t do it.”
Academic publishers have been more willing to experiment with subscription models, inviting libraries to pay an annual fee for unlimited access to certain books. Scholastic Inc., the children’s book publisher, also offers library subscriptions to BookFlix, a collection of picture books that children can read online.
Steve Potash, the chief executive of OverDrive, said publishers should regard library e-books as a form of marketing. Many people who browse a library’s online catalog end up buying the books, he said, although he could provide no evidence of that.
Some publishers agree that library e-books, like print versions, can attract new customers. “We’ve always strongly believed that there is a conversion point where they do start to buy their own,” said Malle Vallik, the director of digital content at Harlequin Enterprises, the romance publisher.
In libraries, readers are attracted to free material. Nancy Gobel, a dental hygienist who already downloads digital audio books from her library in Indianapolis, said she currently buys print books. But she is considering purchasing an electronic reader so she can borrow them for free. “I would still continue to buy, but I would download as much as I can,” she said. In many cases, she said, buying “doesn’t make sense.”
October 15, 2009
Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending
By MOTOKO RICH
Kate Lambert recalls using her library card just once or twice throughout her childhood. Now, she uses it several times a month.
The lure? Electronic books she can download to her laptop. Beginning earlier this year, Ms. Lambert, a 19-year-old community college student in New Port Richey, Fla., borrowed volumes in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold and a vampire novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, without ever visiting an actual branch.
“I can just go online and type my library card number in and look through all the books that they have,” said Ms. Lambert, who usually downloads from the comfort of her bedroom. And, she added, “It’s all for free.”
Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves.
The idea is to capture borrowers who might not otherwise use the library, as well as to give existing customers the opportunity to try new formats.
“People still think of libraries as old dusty books on shelves, and it’s a perception we’re always trying to fight,” said Michael Colford, director of information technology at the Boston Public Library. “If we don’t provide this material for them, they are just going to stop using the library altogether.”
About 5,400 public libraries now offer e-books, as well as digitally downloadable audio books. The collections are still tiny compared with print troves. The New York Public Library, for example, has about 18,300 e-book titles, compared with 860,500 in circulating print titles, and purchases of digital books represent less than 1 percent of the library’s overall acquisition budget.
But circulation is expanding quickly. The number of checkouts has grown to more than 1 million so far this year from 607,275 in all of 2007, according to OverDrive, a large provider of e-books to public libraries. NetLibrary, another provider of e-books to about 5,000 public libraries and a division of OCLC, a nonprofit library service organization, has seen circulation of e-books and digital audio books rise 21 percent over the past year.
Together with the Google books settlement — which the parties are modifying to satisfy the objections of the Department of Justice and others — the expansion of e-books into libraries heralds a future in which more reading will be done digitally.
“As young people become used to reading virtually everything online,” said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, “that is going to propel a change in terms of readership of e-books rather than readership of physical books.”
For now, the expansion will be slowed partly because, with few exceptions, e-books in libraries cannot be read on Amazon’s Kindle, the best-selling electronic reader, or on Apple’s iPhone, which has rapidly become a popular device for reading e-books. Most library editions are compatible with the Sony Reader, computers and a handful of other mobile devices.
Most digital books in libraries are treated like printed ones: only one borrower can check out an e-book at a time, and for popular titles, patrons must wait in line just as they do for physical books. After two to three weeks, the e-book automatically expires from a reader’s account.
But some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.
“I don’t have to get in my car, go to the library, look at the book, check it out,” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, which publishes authors like Janet Evanovich, Augusten Burroughs and Jeffrey Eugenides. “Instead, I’m sitting in the comfort of my living room and can say, ‘Oh, that looks interesting’ and download it.”
As digital collections grow, Mr. Sargent said he feared a world in which “pretty soon you’re not paying for anything.” Partly because of such concerns, Macmillan does not allow its e-books to be offered in public libraries.
Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King and Bob Woodward, has also refrained from distributing its e-books to public libraries. “We have not found a business model that works for us and our authors,” said Adam Rothberg, a spokesman.
For now, the advent of e-book borrowing has not threatened physical libraries by siphoning away visitors because the recession has driven so many new users seeking free resources through library doors. And in some cases, few library patrons seem to know that e-book collections even exist.
In the Brooklyn Public Library system recently, eight people were waiting for three digital copies of “The Lost Symbol,” Dan Brown’s follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” while 715 people were waiting for 526 print copies.
Some librarians suggest that because digital books never wear out, take up no shelf space and could, in theory, be read by multiple people at the same time, the purchasing model for e-books should be different than it is for print.
Pam Sandlian Smith, library director of the Rangeview Library District, which serves a suburban community north of Denver, said that instead of purchasing a set number of digital copies of a book, she would prefer to buy one copy and pay a nominal licensing fee each time a patron downloaded it.
Publishers, inevitably, are nervous about allowing too much of their intellectual property to be offered free. Brian Murray, the chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, said Ms. Smith’s proposal was “not a sustainable model for publishers or authors.”
Some librarians object to the current pricing model because they often pay more for e-books than do consumers who buy them on Amazon or in Sony’s online store. Publishers generally charge the same price for e-books as they do for print editions, but online retailers subsidize the sale price of best sellers by marking them down to $9.99.
“ ‘The Lost Symbol’ is $9.99 on the Sony Reader book page, and I just paid $29.99 for that for the library,” said Robin Bradford, the collection development librarian at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library. Ms. Bradford said she would consider buying additional digital copies if the price were lower. But “to buy nonphysical copies at the same price,” she said, “I just won’t do it.”
Academic publishers have been more willing to experiment with subscription models, inviting libraries to pay an annual fee for unlimited access to certain books. Scholastic Inc., the children’s book publisher, also offers library subscriptions to BookFlix, a collection of picture books that children can read online.
Steve Potash, the chief executive of OverDrive, said publishers should regard library e-books as a form of marketing. Many people who browse a library’s online catalog end up buying the books, he said, although he could provide no evidence of that.
Some publishers agree that library e-books, like print versions, can attract new customers. “We’ve always strongly believed that there is a conversion point where they do start to buy their own,” said Malle Vallik, the director of digital content at Harlequin Enterprises, the romance publisher.
In libraries, readers are attracted to free material. Nancy Gobel, a dental hygienist who already downloads digital audio books from her library in Indianapolis, said she currently buys print books. But she is considering purchasing an electronic reader so she can borrow them for free. “I would still continue to buy, but I would download as much as I can,” she said. In many cases, she said, buying “doesn’t make sense.”
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Can Kindle compete with iPhone?
Starting out a skeptic, this writer bought a Kindle, and it has become his "indispensable companion."
And yet ...
So why am I so eager to see what Apple comes up with?
As much as I have come to depend on the Kindle, using it is also a maddening experience. For something that bills itself as a reading device, it's shockingly difficult to read. The background or "page" color, far from the creamy white of most paper books, is a murky gray. The type seems just a few shades darker. There's a glare on the surface that constantly forces me to maneuver the device to avoid reflections. Reading in direct sunlight is nearly impossible; lamplight is too dim.
Why bother buying one?
There are a growing number of competing devices either already on the market or soon to be launched: the Sony Reader, the Samsung SNE-50K and the Fujitsu FLEPia, which boasts a color screen, to name a few. So far none have dented the Kindle's dominance, at least in terms of brand recognition. But speculation about a new competing product from Apple is intense.
SNE-50K? FLEPia? On names alone, those are loser to the iBook (or whatever Apple names its tablet).
the implications already seem evident. Given the manifest weaknesses of the Kindle, this new device has the potential to dominate the category even more than the iPhone does cellphones. While I wouldn't buy either Apple or Amazon stock on the basis of one product, this would be a boost for Apple, a disappointment for Amazon.
I own shares in both companies and like them both. But Amazon isn't really a hardware company, and the weaknesses of the Kindle shows it.
If Apple comes up with the product many are hoping for, Amazon should focus on selling the books, and let Apple sell the devices. If not, an iBookstore could become the iTunes of reading. And that would be a blow to Amazon.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Popular books
The Help, by Katheryn Stockett: 910 holds on first copy returned of 435 copies
The lost symbol by Dan Brown: 1082 holds on first copy returned of 530 copies.
The lost symbol by Dan Brown: 1082 holds on first copy returned of 530 copies.
Friday, October 2, 2009
A Life, Interrupted
Searching for an answer to a crossword puzzle clue (18 down: "Jason Bourne’s Affliction"), found this article. I remember the story, but not what happened after. Fascinating
M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree
Ms. Kim said she read the M.I.T. blogs in high school. “They painted a picture of what life would be like here.”
At M.I.T., from left, Paul Baranay, Jess Kim and Chris Mills write blogs for its admissions site.
October 2, 2009
M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree
By TAMAR LEWIN
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cristen Chinea, a senior at M.I.T., made a confession in her blog on the college Web site.
“There’ve been several times when I felt like I didn’t really fit in at M.I.T.,” she wrote. “I nearly fell asleep during a Star Wars marathon. It wasn’t a result of sleep deprivation. I was bored out of my mind.”
Still, in other ways, Ms. Chinea feels right at home at the institute — she loves the anime club, and that her hall has its own wiki Web site and an Internet Relay for real-time messaging. As she wrote on her blog, a hallmate once told her that “M.I.T. is the closest you can get to living in the Internet,” and Ms. Chinea reported, “IT IS SO TRUE. Love. It. So. Much.”
Dozens of colleges — including Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale — are embracing student blogs on their Web sites, seeing them as a powerful marketing tool for high school students, who these days are less interested in official messages and statistics than in first-hand narratives and direct interaction with current students.
But so far, none of the blogs match the interactivity and creativity of those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they are posted prominently on the admissions homepage, along with hundreds of responses from prospective applicants — all unedited.
Not every admissions office has been so ready to welcome uncensored student writing.
“A lot of people in admissions have not been eager for bloggers, mostly based on fears that we can’t control what people are saying,” said Jess Lord, dean of admissions at Haverford College, which posted student bloggers’ accounts of their summer activities this year, and plans to add bloggers this spring to help admitted students hear about campus life. “We’re learning, slowly, that this is how the world works, especially for high school students.”
M.I.T.’s bloggers, who are paid $10 an hour for up to four hours a week, offer thoughts on anything that might interest a prospective student. Some offer advice on the application process and the institute’s intense workload; others write about quirkier topics, like warm apple pie topped with bacon and hot caramel sauce, falling down the stairs or trying to set a world record in the game of Mattress Dominos.
Posting untouched student writing — and comments reacting to that writing — does carry some risks. Boring, sloppily written posts do nothing to burnish an institutional image, college admissions officials say, and there is always the possibility of an inflammatory or wildly negative posting.
Pomona has considered having student bloggers, but so far has felt that the risks outweigh the benefits, said Art Rodriguez, senior associate dean of admissions.
“Blogs can certainly help humanize the process,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “The flip side is that a few anxious high school students may think and worry too much about what someone wrote on their blog, and present themselves in a slightly different way than who they really are. And there’s always the concern about the political ramifications, that bloggers may open up an issue or topic that starts something negative.”
But Mr. Lord of Haverford said prospective students’ interest in the summer bloggers calmed his worries.
“High school students read the blogs, and they come in and say ‘I can’t believe Haverford students get to do such interesting things with their summers,’ ” he said. “There’s no better way for students to learn about a college than from other students.”
Many high school seniors avidly follow student blogs at the colleges they are interested in, and post comments. Luka, one of dozens responding to Ms. Chinea, for example, wrote: “I didn’t know about the anime club. I would have never guessed that people at M.I.T. are interested in anime. Oh well ... +1 on my ‘Why should I go to M.I.T.’ list.”
M.I.T.’s student bloggers said they had read the blogs when they were applying, posted comments and connected with other applicants.
“I was blogging myself, almost every day, when I was in high school, and I read the M.I.T. blogs all the time,” said Jess Kim, a senior blogger. “For me they painted a picture of what life would be like here, and that was part of why I wanted to come.”
Ben Jones, the former director of communications at M.I.T.’s admissions office, began with a single blog by a student five years ago, at the dawn of the Facebook era, and noticed high school students responding right away. “We saw very quickly that prospective students were engaging with each other and building their own community,” said Mr. Jones, who now works at Oberlin College, where he has added blogs to the Web site.
The M.I.T. student bloggers have different majors, ethnicities, residence halls and, particularly, writing styles. Some post weekly or more; others disappear for months. The bloggers are sought out as celebrities during the annual “Meet the Bloggers” session at Campus Preview Weekend.
M.I.T. chooses its bloggers through a contest, in which applicants submit samples of their writing. “The annual blogger selection is like the admissions office’s own running of the bulls,” said Dave McOwen, Mr. Jones’s successor in the admissions office, in his message inviting applications.
This year, 25 freshmen applied for four new spots, and, Mr. McOwen said, it was hard to choose.
“You want people who can communicate and who are going to be involved in different parts of campus life,” he said. “You want them to be positive, but it’s not mandatory.”
And not all posts are positive. Ms. Kim once wrote about how the resident advising system was making it impossible for her to move out of her housing — expressing enough irritation that the housing office requested that the admissions office take her post down. Officials refused, instead having the housing office post a rebuttal of her accusations; eventually, the system was changed.
But most of the blogs are exuberant, lyrical expressions of the joys of M.I.T. life, like last month’s post on returning as a sophomore:
“Something’s changed,” wrote Chris Mills. “Now you know what you’re in for, you know the sleepless nights and frustrations are never far away, but this knowledge can’t seem to remove the exhilarating smile on your face. And it’s in that masochistic moment that you realize who you are. That this is what you’re made for.”
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Firms Get a Hand With Twitter, Facebook
Sylvester Chisom, front, and Arthur Shivers pay a consultant to market their auto-detailing business on Facebook and Twitter
Sylvester Chisom began paying a consultant last summer to blog on Twitter, post status updates on Facebook and run marketing campaigns on both sites for his auto-detailing business.
He thinks the service, which costs $450 a month, is worth it. "It's just better having somebody else dedicated to thinking of stuff to put up," says Mr. Chisom, co-owner of Showroom Shine Express Detailing LLC in St. Louis.
Showroom Shine's Mr. Chisom says he's received several inquiries from potential customers who said they learned about his company through a recent promotion on Facebook. Revenue and traffic to his company's Web site are up slightly from this time last month, he adds.
But Jonathan Zadok, co-owner of the Coffee Groundz LLC in Houston, says he wouldn't pay another firm to blog on behalf of the four-year-old café. "The idea with Twitter is that you get close to an immediate response," he says. With an in-house person handling it, "there's no middle man that has to go check with the company," he says.
Mr. Zadok says last fall Coffee Groundz's general manager, J.R. Cohen, set up profiles for the café on Twitter and Facebook. Customers started tweeting orders and special requests such as booth reservations, and in-store events promoted on the sites drew crowds three times as large as those previously advertised through signs and other traditional means.
The Coffee Groundz prefers to use its general manager, J.R. Cohen, to promote the café.
Mr. Cohen, 31 years old, says he simultaneously posts blog entries on Twitter, Facebook and his employer's Web site three times a day, often from his BlackBerry. He receives text-message and email alerts whenever messages are posted to Coffee Groundz's feed so he can respond, if necessary, in a timely manner.
I'm fascinated by the idea of libraries using these social media.
Sylvester Chisom began paying a consultant last summer to blog on Twitter, post status updates on Facebook and run marketing campaigns on both sites for his auto-detailing business.
He thinks the service, which costs $450 a month, is worth it. "It's just better having somebody else dedicated to thinking of stuff to put up," says Mr. Chisom, co-owner of Showroom Shine Express Detailing LLC in St. Louis.
Showroom Shine's Mr. Chisom says he's received several inquiries from potential customers who said they learned about his company through a recent promotion on Facebook. Revenue and traffic to his company's Web site are up slightly from this time last month, he adds.
But Jonathan Zadok, co-owner of the Coffee Groundz LLC in Houston, says he wouldn't pay another firm to blog on behalf of the four-year-old café. "The idea with Twitter is that you get close to an immediate response," he says. With an in-house person handling it, "there's no middle man that has to go check with the company," he says.
Mr. Zadok says last fall Coffee Groundz's general manager, J.R. Cohen, set up profiles for the café on Twitter and Facebook. Customers started tweeting orders and special requests such as booth reservations, and in-store events promoted on the sites drew crowds three times as large as those previously advertised through signs and other traditional means.
The Coffee Groundz prefers to use its general manager, J.R. Cohen, to promote the café.
Mr. Cohen, 31 years old, says he simultaneously posts blog entries on Twitter, Facebook and his employer's Web site three times a day, often from his BlackBerry. He receives text-message and email alerts whenever messages are posted to Coffee Groundz's feed so he can respond, if necessary, in a timely manner.
I'm fascinated by the idea of libraries using these social media.
Internet Usage Becomes More Global
The U.S. government said Wednesday it had ended its 11-year contract with the nonprofit body that oversees key aspects of the Internet's architecture, after demands from other countries for more say in how the Web works. The move addresses mounting criticism in recent years that no one country should have sole control over important underpinnings of the Internet, such as determining domain name suffixes like ".com."
The criticism has intensified as Internet usage has soared around the world and become critical to economies and governments. Some countries, including China, have suggested they would build their own version of the Internet if the matter wasn't resolved.
Icann, which is based in Marina del Rey, Calif., was established in 1998 by the Clinton administration as a way to ensure that important Internet governance decisions, primarily addressing, were coordinated by a single body. The plan was for the Commerce Department to oversee the body, with veto power over important decisions, until Icann became strong enough to operate on its own as a private-sector organization.
It was considered essential that one body make such decisions to ensure that all users of the Internet were operating with the same address book, known as the domain-name system. The power of the Internet lies in part in this universality. Typing in www.ibm.com allows a user, whether in Paris or Pittsburgh, to reach the same Web site.
While the Internet was started in the U.S., today just 15% of the world's estimated 1.7 billion Internet users reside in North America, according to internetworldstats.com.
Icann is also planning to open up by next year domain suffixes to a wide variety of words, such as dot-airport and dot-food. The process has prompted concerns from some that the change could infringe on owners of well-known brands, potentially delaying the process.
The criticism has intensified as Internet usage has soared around the world and become critical to economies and governments. Some countries, including China, have suggested they would build their own version of the Internet if the matter wasn't resolved.
Icann, which is based in Marina del Rey, Calif., was established in 1998 by the Clinton administration as a way to ensure that important Internet governance decisions, primarily addressing, were coordinated by a single body. The plan was for the Commerce Department to oversee the body, with veto power over important decisions, until Icann became strong enough to operate on its own as a private-sector organization.
It was considered essential that one body make such decisions to ensure that all users of the Internet were operating with the same address book, known as the domain-name system. The power of the Internet lies in part in this universality. Typing in www.ibm.com allows a user, whether in Paris or Pittsburgh, to reach the same Web site.
While the Internet was started in the U.S., today just 15% of the world's estimated 1.7 billion Internet users reside in North America, according to internetworldstats.com.
Icann is also planning to open up by next year domain suffixes to a wide variety of words, such as dot-airport and dot-food. The process has prompted concerns from some that the change could infringe on owners of well-known brands, potentially delaying the process.
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