Apple: 1 million new iBooks customers each week since iOS 8 launch

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I wonder if one day we will look back with nostalgia at these "fancy" recommendation engines? Maybe we can do the whole "In my day we had to walk to school up hill both ways with hot potatoes in our shorts to keep us warm" sort of thing.

Seriously we couldn't afford hot potatoes, for our shorts, but we did have long legged pants at least

I can envision a day that Amazon et al will send us stuff before we even look for it and we will be so happy with most of their choices we will pay for them.

Isn't that a scary thought.

Edit: maybe I read a book or short story along those lines once?
Helen

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I remember back in the good old days when mail-in book search requests and recommendation abacuses turned up nothing but hundreds and hundreds of titles that I couldn't wait to spend my hard earned money on. It's a damn shame these new-fangled computerty book stores came along and ruined a perfectly good way of searching for anything and everything under the sun that one might want to read. Heck, I practically wore out the recommendation drawer on my library's card catalog myself (couldn't wait 'til the third Thurs of every month; when the new recommendations got added). Man, those were the days. Nothing like the limited, slow, crippled, narrowly defined, crapppy search/recommendation engines of today!

Yea, whatever. Pointing that one company's implementation is flawed isn't the same as rejected all new technology. But then again, I'm sure you knew that and just didn't want to actually address the issue.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I can envision a day that Amazon et al will send us stuff before we even look for it and we will be so happy with most of their choices we will pay for them.

Isn't that a scary thought.

That is seriously creepy..... because you could see something like that happening. I can just picture the marketing guys right now looking at technology and all the information they gather about us and wondering what more they can learn about customers so they can do exactly that.

[thewitt]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I can envision a day that Amazon et al will send us stuff before we even look for it and we will be so happy with most of their choices we will pay for them.

SFBC Book of the Month used to be that way... Seriously. The book would simply arrive in the mail and if you didn't want it you sent it back. If you did not send it back they billed you for it.

[soulfuldog]

That reminds me, Readers Digest have been doing that for years. I used to get mad at my Mum for just keeping the newly published RD hardback (at £15.99) they'd send out to her every three months. I could never understand why she didn't just send it back since she'd never ordered it in the first place.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by thewitt

SFBC Book of the Month used to be that way... Seriously. The book would simply arrive in the mail and if you didn't want it you sent it back. If you did not send it back they billed you for it.

When was this? I remember only getting a book if I missed sending back the card in time. I also remember one of the book clubs changing to only send a book if you requested it. I guess they were getting too many deliveries refused.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yea, whatever. Pointing that one company's implementation is flawed isn't the same as rejected all new technology. But then again, I'm sure you knew that and just didn't want to actually address the issue.

Do you have examples of any company's implementation that only returns the titles you want it to? And you're right, I don't want to address the issue. Because there isn't one to address. You made it up. Not being willing to try the books that a search/recommendation engine returns is not proof that it didn't return titles you might enjoy. Or that the engine has an "agenda." Every book search I do on the internet turns up titles that make it onto my "maybe sorta wanna check it out list." Never been happier with the scope of choices being recommended to me.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Do you have examples of any company's implementation that only returns the titles you want it to? And you're right, I don't want to address the issue. Because there isn't one to address. You made it up. Not being willing to try the books that a search/recommendation engine returns is not proof that it didn't return titles you might enjoy. Or that the engine has an "agenda." Every book search I do on the internet turns up titles that make it onto my "maybe sorta wanna check it out list." Never been happier with the scope of choices being recommended to me.

I'm glad your happy. I'm not. Everytime I go to amazon and try to look through the new books in a particular subject (sf&f usually), I get frustrated and give up after scrolling through 50 out of 100 + pages of books I have zero interest in, by authors I've never heard of. I've reading SF&F since the mid 70's and know most of the major authors.

When I search the kindle store for Roger Zelazny, I get 50 book, only some of which have anything to do with Roger Zelazny. Instead I get several kindle unlimited books by Tim McBain. I get books by John Zelazny, Leigh Grossman, Alfred Bester, Harry Harrison, George R.R. Martin, Andre Norton, Michael Aizen. The one constant in the non Roger Zelazny books is most of them are kindleunlimited books.

I get that Amazon wants to push the Kindle Unlimited, but if I search from Roger Zelazny, I want Roger Zelazny books.

When I look at the last 30 days under fantasy, I see titles like "Murder in Mayberry: Barney's Return", "Oh Crumps!3: The Tooth Fairy", "Peter the Pirate", "Portal to Elysium:Where Love is eternal", "Mistaken Blows and Turpentine kisses". That's all on one page.

Yea, no problem here. Anything Amazon does is perfect and can't possibly be any better. I'm glad you like it, but don't pretend that there aren't issues.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yea, no problem here. Anything Amazon does is perfect and can't possibly be any better. I'm glad you like it, but don't pretend that there aren't issues.

And I'm sorry you DON'T like it, but don't pretend your dislikes (or inability to create effective search criteria) are universal issues or agendas.

And again, which of the many other search/recommendation engines out there DO meet your exacting specifications? Chief among which seems to be returning only authors and titles that you HAVE heard of?

Also ... funny how someone who hates always being accused of being an Apple Fanboy is so quick to assign a similar label to anyone who doesn't dislike the same things you do about Amazon.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And I'm sorry you DON'T like it, but don't pretend your dislikes (or inability to create effective search criteria) are universal issues or agendas.

And again, which of the many other search/recommendation engines out there DO meet your exacting specifications? Chief among which seems to be returning only authors and titles that you HAVE heard of?

Also ... funny how someone who hates always being accused of being an Apple Fanboy is so quick to assign a similar label to anyone who doesn't dislike the same things you do about Amazon.

Once again you are throwing out that strawman. I'm not claiming that there is some perfect search engine. I'm saying that Amazon is very much flawed. If you don't see doing a simple author search and pulling back a bunch of books with zero relationship to the search is a problem, then I suspect you will never admit any issues with Amazon.

One of Amazon's problem is that a lot of people trying to make some quick money have learned how to scam Amazon's ebook system. I suspect that the other part of the problem is that Amazon, like you, doesn't consider getting a bunch of false positives a big deal. I also suspect that most people tend to look for whatever is popular, or for specific books, rather than browse for books.

Audible actually has a very good search engine and is much for flexible than Amazon (yes, I know Amazon bought Audible). One thing that Amazon could do that would make things much better is allow the user to select the number of items per page, like Audible does.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If you don't see doing a simple author search and pulling back a bunch of books with zero relationship to the search is a problem, then I suspect you will never admit any issues with Amazon.

The only way I would see it as a problem is if a specific author search returned ZERO books by said author (provided they have any of that author's books for sale).

When I search the Kindle store for "Roger Zelazny," the first two items returned are indeed relevant to Roger Zelazny. The first is The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth for $7.97. The second item in the list is, in fact, a link to Roger Zelazny's Author Page on Amazon. Which has what appears to be links to every book of his they sell.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The only way I would see it as a problem is if a specific author search returned ZERO books by said author (provided they have any of that author's books for sale).

When I search the Kindle store for "Roger Zelazny," the first two items returned are indeed relevant to Roger Selazny. The first is The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth for $7.97. The second item in the list is, in fact, a link to Roger Zelazny's Author Page on Amazon. Which has what appears to be links to every book of his they sell.

Thanks for the link. I used to be a big Zelazny fan, and there are some books there that I've not read.

Graham

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Graham

Thanks for the link. I used to be a big Zelazny fan, and there are some books there that I've not read.

Graham

Oh you're welcome. And just to recap: "Roger Zelazny" + Search Kindle Store = Pretty-Much Every Book of His They Have to Sell (or are permitted to sell you) in the first two items returned by the search.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Once again you are throwing out that strawman. I'm not claiming that there is some perfect search engine. I'm saying that Amazon is very much flawed. If you don't see doing a simple author search and pulling back a bunch of books with zero relationship to the search is a problem, then I suspect you will never admit any issues with Amazon.

One of Amazon's problem is that a lot of people trying to make some quick money have learned how to scam Amazon's ebook system. I suspect that the other part of the problem is that Amazon, like you, doesn't consider getting a bunch of false positives a big deal. I also suspect that most people tend to look for whatever is popular, or for specific books, rather than browse for books.

Audible actually has a very good search engine and is much for flexible than Amazon (yes, I know Amazon bought Audible). One thing that Amazon could do that would make things much better is allow the user to select the number of items per page, like Audible does.

I am not a big Amazon fan and rarely search for books there. But I do buy things from Amazon US that I cannot get in Canada and sometimes from Amazon.ca if there price is right. (much better than shopping local price).
'
I find their suggestions annoying, but I perceive them as improving. Are they brainwashing me perhaps

They are flawed of course, and the search is not perfect either. I still find it much better than it was this time last year.

I am afraid that saying audible has a search engine that suits you
better seems very much a strawman to me. Show me several sites with Amazons quantity of inventoried items or even 1/4 and I will think you are giving a less biased opinion.

Helen

[murg]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Oh you're welcome. And just to recap: "Roger Zelazny" + Search Kindle Store = Pretty-Much Every Book of His They Have to Sell (or are permitted to sell you) in the first two items returned by the search.

Clearly, this is some sort of evil conspiracy on Amazon's part.