Shelfari was a neat project that I had always checked out once in a while. Until Amazon acquired Shelfari, it was difficult to see a sustainable business model behind it. It used to be a social network just for book lovers where you have a virtual shelf showcasing your books where related discussions were fostered.
Now about 3 years after Amazon's acquisition of Shelfari, what has happened?
It has transformed to a Niche Social network+Wikipedia+Comprehensive social integration
It has also integrated the Amazon's preview feature for the books and most importantly Kindle Store.
Meanwhile the latest development -
With the recent news of Amazon trying out retail book store -The retail stores are going to be mini book stores. Mini?! What would that imply?
As the ebooks are still scratching the surface and will gnaw the physical books market faster than we expect, my best hunch would be that the retail store will be more like a kindle service center with sales men nudging the customers to buy the ebooks when they will find out that the physical books are not available and with a reason.
I wonder how Amazon's Shelfari play will unwind with this recent development. Will Shelfari be just a marketing tool for fostering the customer community and of course send all the traffic to Amazon? or Will Amazon slice all the book business and bring it under Shelfari?
Book Business = Shelfari+Kindle+retail store.
Given Amazon's strong brand the second case would probably not happen. Also Amazon cloud is not fitting well in the equation and Amazon would have to spend a lot to do this. What would be the advantage with the fictional new structure? Amazon is no more a single businesses - It is in multiple businesses and this would give a better direction as we move forward.. I think?!
If only Shelfari had convinced all the publishers to host their books on its site and offered ebook tools for authoring books - It would have been a serious competitor for Amazon.If only...
On side note, you can also see how Niche social networks will take off with Shelfari as an example.
Talking about Shelfari I wonder how Ning is performing.Well that will be for the next post.
Now about 3 years after Amazon's acquisition of Shelfari, what has happened?
It has transformed to a Niche Social network+Wikipedia+Comprehensive social integration
It has also integrated the Amazon's preview feature for the books and most importantly Kindle Store.
Meanwhile the latest development -
With the recent news of Amazon trying out retail book store -The retail stores are going to be mini book stores. Mini?! What would that imply?
As the ebooks are still scratching the surface and will gnaw the physical books market faster than we expect, my best hunch would be that the retail store will be more like a kindle service center with sales men nudging the customers to buy the ebooks when they will find out that the physical books are not available and with a reason.
I wonder how Amazon's Shelfari play will unwind with this recent development. Will Shelfari be just a marketing tool for fostering the customer community and of course send all the traffic to Amazon? or Will Amazon slice all the book business and bring it under Shelfari?
Book Business = Shelfari+Kindle+retail store.
Given Amazon's strong brand the second case would probably not happen. Also Amazon cloud is not fitting well in the equation and Amazon would have to spend a lot to do this. What would be the advantage with the fictional new structure? Amazon is no more a single businesses - It is in multiple businesses and this would give a better direction as we move forward.. I think?!
If only Shelfari had convinced all the publishers to host their books on its site and offered ebook tools for authoring books - It would have been a serious competitor for Amazon.If only...
On side note, you can also see how Niche social networks will take off with Shelfari as an example.
Talking about Shelfari I wonder how Ning is performing.Well that will be for the next post.
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