Virtual Book Browsing

You know what a pain it is to browse through a hundred titles on the internet, especially if you live in Malaysia with stone age broadband? Anyway, it is so much more fun to go through the books in a bookshop (despite the risk of permanent nect injury from looking at titles sideways at some). Firstly, you get to go through more books in less time. Then you get to touch and feel (or is it caress?) the books, admire the paper and print quality, the embossed title, the UV laminate, and smell them (I mean, take in the aroma) before you are allowed to be seduced and agree to take them home with you -- for they are such beautiful objects. In contrast buying books on the internet is so cold, so utilitarian, so functional, so unromantic, so blah. Worse than that would be downloading a book digitally. (Okay, textbooks and academic material do deserve to be downloaded digitally, though porn is will probably be the first to get there -- erotica, right! )

At Zoomii, 'You can zoom in and out of bookshelves or pan around to navigate the service. The site design feels just like you're browsing a bookshelf at any bookstore except the books are facing cover-forward instead of spine-out. To keep up with the feel of a bookstore, books are organized by author and you can also compare book sizes to get a feel for how big or small a book is ...' and then buy it at Amazon.

I tried Zoomii. It does all the tings it says it does, but I found it a bit clunky. I guess, you could chance to spot a book you have been looking for all your life while Zoomii-ing about, but it does not beat finding one in your local bookshop, and cheaper too.

But now at zoomii.com comes something in between. Still does not quite beat browsing in a bookshop, but it is quite cool.

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Zoomii