eTexbook seller fails logic test
As reported today in The Book Standard:
An electronic textbook website is launching a smelly e-book after finding college students like to be able to smell their books, reports Reuters. A survey of 600 college students conducted by pollster Zogby International found that 43 percent of students identified smell, either a new or old smell, as the quality they most liked about books as physical objects.
Brilliant. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) Here are a few other ideas:
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Many bank customers find that they are more likely to stand in line to interact with a young and attractive teller. Online banks could react by putting pictures of young and attractive people throughout the website experience.
Cooking enthusiasts say that rinsing vegetables in the sink makes them feel closer to the food and the earth. Canned goods companies respond by producing dirty cans.
Commuters report enjoying the time on the train so they can listen to their favorite podiobooks. Employers now require telecommuters to get up an extra 30 minutes early so they can listen, too.
Is the fallacy of your logic so hard to see? The book is a conduit of knowledge. The fact that some one also enjoys the scent is an offshoot of the meduim, but not a deciding factor in switching mediums. The more I read about missteps like this, the less I’m surprised that the eBook industry isn’t larger.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
It’s like the guy searching for the car keys under the streetlight.
They don’t have what it takes to actually fix the problem (make an ebook reader that’s got the right feel) so they putter around with every harebrained scheme that comes along.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:13 am
I don’t get it – how can I smell an e-book? Wouldn’t that mean buying a device to let me smell it? Gosh, life just gets weirder!
Nobilis has it right, it’s the actual hardware that make it unpalatable. They need to make a reader that open like a book with a two page spread (I know, how strange a thought is that?) and I can touch the screen to “turn” the page (rather than scroll), with a screen offering the same view area as a paperback book. You still want to feel like you are reading a book.
My second suggestion is to work on the voice for the automated reader, I pity anyone who really HAS to use it, I can’t and won’t hack the tinny tones and mispronounciations. (God bless Podiobooks!)
That’s my two cents worth!
August 25th, 2007 at 6:09 am
uh…guys…it’s a scratch and sniff sticker that they mail you. don’t you think it might be just a LITTLE tongue-in-cheek? it’s just an attempt at a funny gimmick to attract attention. nothing more, nothing less…
August 25th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
And here I thought it was like one of those disk scent air freshener gizmos!! You never know what people will come up with! I may have missed the joke, Michael, but the issue of making ebooks more palatable is valid. Thank you for the condescending correction.
August 26th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I didn’t intend to come off as condescending. That’s the problem with text, I guess…sometimes that tone doesn’t come out quite right. Really, Joan my comment was directed more toward Evo. Evo, did you realize this was the case when you posted this? The tone of the post just seemed a little harsh for a silly scratch and sniff promotion…
August 27th, 2007 at 9:22 am
As a guy who is constantly exposed to moronic promotions, I don’t find my comments harsh at all. Regardless of the vehicle, someone at an organizations has a faulty logic circuit. It’s a gimmick, yes. And a dumb one at that. This isn’t helping the image of eBooks.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Okay…it is a pretty stupid promotion. That I will agree with 100%. I guess not being directly involved in the industry myself means that kind of thing just rolls past me as not being worth my attention. (And I can’t believe that someone thought it warrented announcing in an article.) At the same time, I guess I can understand why this kind of thing would raise the ire of someone directly involved in the industry. I hadn’t really looked at it from the perspective of how gimmicks like this effect the image of the eBook industry. So I digress…
August 31st, 2007 at 5:35 pm
[...] eTextbook seller fails logic testEvo points out what I assume is a hilarious misuse of survey data. CafeScribe is supplying a “book” scented scratch and sniff sticker to customers because people like the way books smell. Tags: CafeScribe , cars , copyright , Cory+Doctorow , Creative+Commons , CSS , design , development , DMCA , ebooks , Evo+Terra , firefox , funny , javascript , Joseph+Smarr , links , money , performance , plugin , programming , redirect , Scrib , SFWA , video , webdesign , webscabs , wordpress , Writing [...]
December 11th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Okay…it is a pretty stupid promotion. That I will agree with 100%. I guess not being directly involved in the industry myself means that kind of thing just rolls past me as not being worth my attention. (And I can’t believe that someone thought it warrented announcing in an article.) At the same time, I guess I can understand why this kind of thing would raise the ire of someone directly involved in the industry. I hadn’t really looked at it from the perspective of how gimmicks like this effect the image of the eBook industry. So I digress…
December 13th, 2007 at 3:12 am
Yeah right, an ebook that smells! Is it the 1st of April?