revisit Re: Document delivery from the library catalogue

[Elisabeth Roche]

I posted these comments about amazon.com and partnering, in what I thought
was a wry state of mind, just sort of musing to myself how sometimes an
idea (like Open Text's) hits at the wrong time, or somehow it creates a
great uproar (while the other search tools were doing the same thing and no
one complained much about them) and wondering if Amazon.com's aggressive
partnering might backfire on them.

But I didn't really say this though it was what I meant to express. Upon
rereading my post I realize I sound quite negative about Amazon.com and I
really have no negative feelings towards them, I rather admire them.

I am a supporter of commercial enterprises, I come out of direct marketing
myself. I guess I just feel after reading my post, that I should correct
the tone or message I may have put forward. 

I am most interested in what people think and will say about the partnering
topic, I did not mean to appear to be bashing any company or plan.

Apologies.

Elisabeth Roche  eroche at sisna.com
serendipity RULES!





Remember the outrage when Open Text was accused of selling hit list
positioning for search results?

Well, there is another view to take a look at when considering the
Amazon.com partnering plans, (not to mention the disaffection as to actual
revenues ever received you often see posted on the hwg-l or wwwacs-l
newsgroups.)

Excite (I believe it is them) has made a similar arrangement with
Amazon.com. When a person puts in a search for a book, they will be
provided with the URL to Amazon.com so they can so handily go purchase it.

Thoughts? Discussions? Off-topic? Just say so.

Elisabeth Roche  eroche at sisna.com
serendipity RULES!


At 07:43 PM 8/18/97 -0700, Tony Barry wrote:
>At 3:17 PM 18/8/97, Mark Stover wrote:
>>We developed links from each book's ISBN number in our library catalog to
>>the Amazon bookstore.  Since we are members of Amazon's Associates program,
>>each time someone travels through our catalog to Amazon and purchases an
>>Amazon book, we get a small kickback (up to 15% of the book's price).  It
>>doesn't happen very often, but it's cool when it does happen.
>
>Aaagghh!!!  Gazumpded! My next posting was going to propose just this!
>Booksellers and Librarians have common ground and common clientele. Often
>when you read a book from a library you want to buy a copy.  I was also
>going to suggest that the web opac should be geared so that unsuccessful
>searchs could be redirected to the bookshop.  A competing sponsorship model
>could be interested. Offer redirections let Amozon and  Barnes and Noble
>quote for the business and sponsorship of the catalogue.
>
>Well done Phillips Graduate Institute!!
>
>Tony
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>mailto:tony at ningaui.anu.edu.au                |+61 2 6249 5688
>http://purl.oclc.org/NET/Tony.Barry           |+61 2 6288 0959
>
>Ningaui Pty Ltd, GPO Box 1680, Canberra City, ACT 2601
>
>Visiting Fellow,  Department of Computer Science,  Faculty of
>Engineering and Information Technology.   Australian National
>University,    ACT 0200   AUSTRALIA
>
>Apologise for the stolen generation - <http://apology.west.net.au/>
>
>
>
>