Introducing Bookish-A New Website from Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Yep... Pretty much what I'm seeing. Ubuntu 10.04 and and Firefox 18.0.1

18.0 on one computer and 18.0.2 on another and both are fine. But then they are Windows.

Try running Firefox in safe mode.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cromag

Hmmm. Just tried it again. Using Firefox 18.0.2 (latest) on Ubuntu. All scripts permitted, still screwed up.

In particular, the "It's Never Been Easier To Find BOOKS YOU'LL LOVE" text overprints the search box, and the box won't accept any title I give it.

Try safe mode. Don't just disable stuff. And you could also install a fresh Firefox with no add-ons and see what happens?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Try safe mode. Don't just disable stuff. And you could also install a fresh Firefox with no add-ons and see what happens?

Why bother? If Hachette, Penguin and S&S can't be bothered to make a cross-platform site, they obviously don't want customers who aren't using Windows.

This isn't a case of "tiny startup that's Windows-compatible first because they need to get something going, and that's easiest, and they'll sort out the code for other browsers and OSs later." They put real money toward this, and a lot of thought about marketing... and apparently decided that accessibility and device compatibility just weren't very important.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Why bother? If Hachette, Penguin and S&S can't be bothered to make a cross-platform site, they obviously don't want customers who aren't using Windows.

Exactly, and IIRC, it was first announced two years ago, so they've had plenty of time to get it working.

[cromag]

Windows XP and Firefox 18.0.2 works. Of all the different scripts that the site wants to run (clicktale, optimizely, etc.) the scripts that cause the problems are apparently specific to Bookish.

They choose to live in a small universe.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

They put real money toward this, and a lot of thought about marketing... and apparently decided that accessibility and device compatibility just weren't very important.

A lot of programmers flat refuse to write platform-agnostic code. That's why WotC wrote its DDi tools in .net instead of Java or Python.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by teh603

A lot of programmers flat refuse to write platform-agnostic code. That's why WotC wrote its DDi tools in .net instead of Java or Python.

And Hachette, Penguin and S&S are welcome to decide, "the programmers we hired don't want to deal with code that works on Apple machines," and skip those potential customers. But unlike WotC, Bookish is not at the top of its industry, and doesn't have a huge collection of fans who will jump through hoops to do business with them.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

But unlike WotC, Bookish is not at the top of its industry, and doesn't have a huge collection of fans who will jump through hoops to do business with them.

Is Bookish aware of that fact, though?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by teh603

Is Bookish aware of that fact, though?

Sure. At least one or two testers must have passed up the bad news on quality, and some of the staff people must have pointed out the negative business implications.

It's plausible speculation that the best developers at the individual publishers didn't see involvement in a risky joint venture as a great career move.

Consider: Six Stages of a Project

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic and hysteria
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honor for the nonparticipants

If this doesn't yet apply to bookish.com, I suspect it has to in the case of the amazingly bad 3M Cloud Library (http://3m-ssd.implex.net/cloudapps/).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

And Hachette, Penguin and S&S are welcome to decide, "the programmers we hired don't want to deal with code that works on Apple machines," and skip those potential customers. But unlike WotC, Bookish is not at the top of its industry, and doesn't have a huge collection of fans who will jump through hoops to do business with them.

Works fine on the iPad with both Safari and Mercury browsers.

[Kretzer]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

Am i the only person who has no interest in social reading networks?

I wouldn't mind a good recommendation site, but bookish bombed out on the few books I entered looking for like books. Not very useful, at least to me.

No, I also consider myself a quite antisocial reader

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I don't really care much what *most people* say about a book. Discussing some books with some people is a good thing, but a majority vote doesn't help me much.
I never felt the need to share bookmarks and note on my kindle either.

The bookish site did work for me (Safari on OSX 10.6.8) and looked pretty enough, but I lost patience with it after a few minutes. I found it hard to figure what the point of the site was and annoying that they did not bother to tell me. The "about us" menu is well hidden at the bottom of the page. Obviously it is meant to be something like goodreads but only with the books of their publishers? Or did I get that wrong?

[Kretzer]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I do not understand that site. Is it an online magazine about books and authors? A book store? Why should I sign up or login? What is this book's you'll love thing in the middle of the page? Why is the today in history feature thing near the bottom of the page (or on the page at all)? Why are there ads at the bottom, and a non clickable thing that looks like an ad at the top? What does the site icon represent.

Haha, I tried to klick on the book covers, too, because it looks like one of those "cover flow" carousel things.

In their marketing lingo this is probably "a unique innovative user experience".

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic and hysteria
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honor for the nonparticipants

Oh that is so good!