Comments on: BookServer vs. Amazon in e-book distribution battle

By: Ori Avtalion

Ori Avtalion — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:15:39 +0000

Their public domain books are based on the same archive.org source as the ones offered by Google, with awful OCR’d “typos”.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:03:07 +0000

> But it’s a great start. I love IA

Me, too, Pond. I hope that Brewster and crew will listen. I’d love to think that people would automatically prefer Open Distribution to avoid Amazon-style monopolies, but the system is going to have to earn readers’ use—by way of great features and convenience and even content, such as reader reviews. Reminder: I know the present setup is just a beta. But in Brewster’s shoes, I’d have waited longer for a more polished version.

Thanks,
David

By: pond

pond — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:50:26 +0000

Good points. There is also the issue Amazon faced with the public domain works: searching for Lord ‘Dunsany’ brought up various editions of the same work, without any guidance as to differences between them.

Reader reviews would be a great help, as you note. Maybe some sort of Wikimedia approach, so that notes could be added by readers to each edition.

But it’s a great start. I love IA.