RE: Disintermediating the disintermediator?

[<Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>]

Joe,

Thanks for passing the news on about Google's Autolink service and its
partnership with Amazon. I've just tested it against our own online
bookshop and our online library, both places where there are lots of
ISBNs! I have a couple of reactions (which I'm copying to my contact at
Google):

1. Google is passing potential business to Amazon, ahead of other online
booksellers. This is shame for clients trying to get hold of books from
smaller publishers. Why? Because smaller publishers like us cannot afford
the ruinous terms demanded by Amazon to sell our books. Rather than
increase our prices (which is what Amazon's policy suggests), we have a
network of distributors around the world (as well as our own online
bookshop) each of whom offers a much better service at lower cost to
buyers. I'm sure this an unwanted side-effect of Google's tool, but they
really need to replicate what they're doing with Google Print and offer a
choice of online bookshop outlets.

2. I found it very irritating that there is no back-link offered from the
Amazon site. Once I clicked on the the ISBN link in Google's toolbar,
there was no going back!!

Toby Green
OECD Publishing

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: 28 February, 2005 1:51 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Disintermediating the disintermediator?

Interesting blog post pasted below from Danny Sullivan at
searchenginewatch.com.  The gist is that organizations are finding ways to
offset some of Google's ability to direct traffic, which could be
significant now that so many people believe that search begins and ends
with Google. There may be an implication here (I'm not sure myself; this
is new territory) that such counter-Google tactics will increase costs for
content publishers, as they will have to invest in new tool sets.  
Sullivan't post follows:

>I'm working on a story about the Google AutoLink feature and 
>controversy is has raised with some publishers that should be out 
>tomorrow. But I wanted to note an interesting change now that I spotted 
>at Barnes & Noble, the poster child for concerns over the tool.

>Yesterday, I could go over to Barnes & Noble, find a page with an ISBN 
>number and use the AutoLink tool in the Google Toolbar to turn the 
>numbers into links that lead to Amazon. Today, all those ISBN numbers 
>are already links.

>What happened? My guess is that Barnes & Noble got wise to the fact 
>that AutoLink won't impact any ISBN numbers that are already links -- 
>so they made every ISBN a link leading back to within their own site.

>Powell's Books hasn't figured that out yet. If you are using the Google 
>Toolbar with the new feature, visit this page, and see how clicking on 
>the button will show you how the ISBN can be turned into an Amazon 
>link.

-- ----
Joe Esposito