As Maria alluded to in an earlier email, Amazon and Google succeed not
only because of their search capability and other features, but because
of their business models. They are profitable because their advertising
mechanisms trumped competitors and because they have played their game
very very well. They may or may not be the most exemplary at any given
technology.
All one need do is to look at Microsoft or remember VHS versus Betamax
to realize that superior technologies may not be reflected in consumer
choices. We are herd animals - once enough of us start choosing
something, it becomes a de facto standard for most of us for at least
some time. Google and Amazon are far from perfect, but they are /good
enough/ to keep market share. They do this by giving the /appearance/ of
superior functioning and if the transaction for a consumer appears
better from that consumer's perspective, it is better, regardless of the
tech involved.
Scott Warren
Walt Crawford wrote:
> I'll toss in one note: Mary Grenci raises an excellent point, perhaps
> indirectly: Yes, I think you can demonstrate that lots of online
> catalog searches are not for known items: They're for "what you have
> by this author." (Where "you have" means "at this library, right now")
>
> And library catalogs do these searches pretty well, although there may
> be room for improvement in most cases. A lot of them (I believe) even
> sort the results in a way that makes sense to most users, e.g.
> alphabetic by title.
>
> [You know, I'll bet that a majority of library users also know what an
> "author" is...]
>
> walt crawford
>
> On 6/13/06, *Mary Grenci* <mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu
> <mailto:mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu>> wrote:
>
> ...portions deleted...
>
>
>
>
> If, on the other hand, I'm looking for anything from a particular
> author
> (my more usual search since I'm looking for new stuff to read) I
> get a
> mess. Yes, I'm sure all the things in the system by that author are
> *somewhere* in the numerous pages, but they're certainly not in a
> logical order. They're interspersed among other things that must
> have been pulled up for some reason, although I can't always tell
> why. Again, this is more true if I forget to use quotes, but it's
> generally a mess even if I remember. The sort options are also
> less than
> helpful.
>
>
>
> Mary
>
>
> Mary Grenci
> University of Oregon Libraries
> mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu <mailto:mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu>
>
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scott Warren, M.A. LIS
Assistant Head
Textiles Library and Engineering Services
North Carolina State University Libraries
Box 8301
Raleigh, NC 27695-8301
919-515-6602 (phone)
919-515-3926 (fax)
scott_warren_at_ncsu.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Received on Tue Jun 13 2006 - 14:14:41 EDT