MobyLives
reported recently: According to the Businessweek report: A (free downloadable barcode)
app, called Price Check, allows shoppers to look up Amazon’s prices
by scanning physical products at a store using their phones.There is nothing wrong with comparative shopping, nor is there anything wrong with one store checking the price of goods in another (it happens all the time), but to pay one’s customers to spy on competition smells of sulphur. Does the app also allow information to be sent back to the mother ship? But that is Amazon, and that is America; can't see them getting away with it anywhere else in the world.
“MobyLives report found it interesting to observe that the survey in question meant brick-and-mortar bookstores were a crucial part of almost 40 percent of Amazon’s sales. We asked then what it would mean to Amazon shoppers, if those stores went out of business.” Talk about killing your golden goose. After books, what?
As a reaction to this (or it could be entirely coincidental), Publishing Perspectives had another story about an extension for Google Chrome that has been created by the owner of Marcus Bookstores, a small chain in San Francisco and Oakland, that warns customers each time they are about to shop at Amazon:
“When’s the last time Amazon brought one of your favorite writers in to read from her work — for free?
When’s the last time Amazon recommended a book based on your actual interests, not a bunch of data they’ve fashioned into a half-assed consumer profile of you?
Sure, you might save a couple of bucks on this order, but what’s that compared to supporting local businesses, maintaining a local tax base, and buying your books from somebody who actually cares about books?”
Good luck, David. You sling shot is not going to be any good against a Goliath with nuclear bombs. Amazon is hell-bent on world domination, even if it destroys the entire planet. Books, schmooks.
If you really want to fight Goliath, read this: Indies battle Amazon — by becoming publishers. Are you up to becoming a 'creative intermediary'? That's what Silverfish Books did ten years ago. Get Amazon (and the other big boys) to sell your books and give you money. Promote your local small-town author! You'll be surprised how good some of them are.
Let 2012 be the new '1984' for the book industry.
