3 ms·

I wonder about the editor aspect of small shops, like a book shop with a special selection, or a shop with children's toys (one of those closed in our neighborh

by Tichy 15y ago

I wonder about the editor aspect of small shops, like a book shop with a special selection, or a shop with children's toys (one of those closed in our neighborhood recently, apparently some former customers cried). Amazon sucks for discovery of things imo. At least for serendipity - in an extreme case, an acquaintance met his lover in a library... Will those small retailers simply be replaced by affiliates who are content with earning 10% on their referrals? Is 10% a fair price for that kind of thing? And Amazon even seems to have a cap on how much you can earn, like if the item is really expensive you won't even get the full 10%?

tokenadult 15y ago
Amazon sucks for discovery of things imo. I have always been a library lover, and even took a library science course (cataloging and classification) as an undergraduate elective. But from the beginning on Amazon I have liked the "customers who bought this also bought . . . " recommendations built from Amazon's database, and I have learned of many interesting books by Amazon's recommendations that I later bought. In library science, "browsing function" is discovery of books by scanning the shelves where books of similar classification are put, which groups books differently in each library (each library has a different collection, and some libraries are classified by the Dewey system, and some by the Library of Congress system, in English-speaking countries). Amazon does very well as a place to apply the browsing function, because its collection size is huge, and similarities of books can be scanned by author, by subject (Amazon has subject classifications for most of its books), by what readers have written reviews of them, and by what buyers have bought them. I now wish that my friendly local public library, which I use VERY heavily and where my second son volunteers, would implement browsing paths as varied and as powerful as Amazon's, and my local public library is already famous in many parts of the United States for having some of the most detailed cataloging and one of the most powerful and convenient online catalogs in the country. Compare https://catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=elibrary#focus https://catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=elibrary#f... to http://www.amazon.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ starting with some of your favorite books to see what browsing turns up in each online catalog.
- Tichy 15y ago
  You mean browsing the "customers also bought" section? Maybe - because if you simply want to browse "fantasy books" (for example), last time I checked you are stuck with thousands of books and no further way to drill down. How does the subject classification work? Maybe I don't see some features because Amazon Germany doesn't have them :-/
- potatolicious 15y ago
  Amazon desperately needs personalized rankings a la Netflix, particularly as they expand into digital content. I've been trying to watch some of Amazon's free Prime video content, but it's very difficult - I have to wade through page after page of My Little Pony to get to anything I'm interested in. There is practically no discoverability features besides "customers who watched this also...", which is generally not very useful. Moving ratings? They are so highly variable for media, and so subjective to personal taste, that they are practically useless. Global reviews work fine for electronics, but they fall apart utterly when applied to content. Go look at the star rating distribution for any reasonably controversial book - all over the place, and tells me nothing about how I would like it. The MP3 store is similar. iTunes does a pretty decent job with Genius, but is still pretty poor discoverability-wise. Spotify's new-content discoverability is also extremely poor. Rdio is pretty good, but I would pay for a Pandora that plugs into a music store/subscription service. IMO this is some pretty lazy engineering - what works for selling DVD players does not work for selling content, but Amazon's UI for browsing digital video is practically identical to their physical-shopping UI, and that's entirely unacceptable.
  - gujk 15y ago
    Maybe you aren't giving Amazon the credit they deserve. MLP is huge in the hipster geek set that frequents HN. Cf http://www.google.com/m?q=my+little+brony http://www.google.com/m?q=my+little+brony
ippisl 15y ago
Another example of better discovery tool online is jinni.com .it uses semantic search to categorize movies and tv content. It really does a great job in discovering new movies. And regarding the small shops and discovery: The web is flooded with sites telling us about interesting products. do you really feel a lack of interesting stuff to purchase?
- Tichy 15y ago
  I have mostly sufficient ideas for stuff to buy, but I am also probably living in my own filter bubble. I don't even know many web sites to visit - basically I only visit Hacker News, some German news mag I'd like to quit, and a friend's forum. How do you stumble across a small online toy shop with a choice selection?
  - ippisl 15y ago
    I did a few search for stuff like "interesting online toy store" , "fun toys" "best toy blog" etc, doing a bit google search , a bit blog search and following a few links and got those: http://www.drtoy.com/ http://www.drtoy.com/ - seems more geared towards adults , helping them choose best toys for children. http://www.scientificsonline.com/ http://www.scientificsonline.com/ scientific toys http://www.yoyo.com http://www.yoyo.com is by amazon, looks pretty nice http://www.designertoyawards.com/categories/20 http://www.designertoyawards.com/categories/20 they won an award http://www.toptoysblog.com/ http://www.toptoysblog.com/ toys with reviews It isn't harder than discovering interesting programming tools, for example , which is to say, pretty easy. But it's a lot of text.I wonder if there's something a lot more visual , video based for the children.
    - Tichy 15y ago
      Thanks - I must admit I did not actually do that search myself before. It is getting harder to trust online, too - top results are likely to be SEOed, Reviews are fake and so on (not the sites you picked, but in general). I would probably be able to pick something from the sites you found, but a real shop would still be more fun for now. Especially with the toys, it would for example be nice to check the kind of sounds they make. We just got two toys for Christmas that are unbearable...

by Tichy 15y ago

tokenadult 15y ago

Amazon sucks for discovery of things imo. I have always been a library lover, and even took a library science course (cataloging and classification) as an undergraduate elective. But from the beginning on Amazon I have liked the "customers who bought this also bought . . . " recommendations built from Amazon's database, and I have learned of many interesting books by Amazon's recommendations that I later bought. In library science, "browsing function" is discovery of books by scanning the shelves where books of similar classification are put, which groups books differently in each library (each library has a different collection, and some libraries are classified by the Dewey system, and some by the Library of Congress system, in English-speaking countries). Amazon does very well as a place to apply the browsing function, because its collection size is huge, and similarities of books can be scanned by author, by subject (Amazon has subject classifications for most of its books), by what readers have written reviews of them, and by what buyers have bought them. I now wish that my friendly local public library, which I use VERY heavily and where my second son volunteers, would implement browsing paths as varied and as powerful as Amazon's, and my local public library is already famous in many parts of the United States for having some of the most detailed cataloging and one of the most powerful and convenient online catalogs in the country. Compare https://catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=elibrary#focus https://catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=elibrary#f... to http://www.amazon.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ starting with some of your favorite books to see what browsing turns up in each online catalog.

Tichy 15y ago
You mean browsing the "customers also bought" section? Maybe - because if you simply want to browse "fantasy books" (for example), last time I checked you are stuck with thousands of books and no further way to drill down. How does the subject classification work? Maybe I don't see some features because Amazon Germany doesn't have them :-/
potatolicious 15y ago
Amazon desperately needs personalized rankings a la Netflix, particularly as they expand into digital content. I've been trying to watch some of Amazon's free Prime video content, but it's very difficult - I have to wade through page after page of My Little Pony to get to anything I'm interested in. There is practically no discoverability features besides "customers who watched this also...", which is generally not very useful. Moving ratings? They are so highly variable for media, and so subjective to personal taste, that they are practically useless. Global reviews work fine for electronics, but they fall apart utterly when applied to content. Go look at the star rating distribution for any reasonably controversial book - all over the place, and tells me nothing about how I would like it. The MP3 store is similar. iTunes does a pretty decent job with Genius, but is still pretty poor discoverability-wise. Spotify's new-content discoverability is also extremely poor. Rdio is pretty good, but I would pay for a Pandora that plugs into a music store/subscription service. IMO this is some pretty lazy engineering - what works for selling DVD players does not work for selling content, but Amazon's UI for browsing digital video is practically identical to their physical-shopping UI, and that's entirely unacceptable.
- gujk 15y ago
  Maybe you aren't giving Amazon the credit they deserve. MLP is huge in the hipster geek set that frequents HN. Cf http://www.google.com/m?q=my+little+brony http://www.google.com/m?q=my+little+brony

ippisl 15y ago

Another example of better discovery tool online is jinni.com .it uses semantic search to categorize movies and tv content. It really does a great job in discovering new movies. And regarding the small shops and discovery: The web is flooded with sites telling us about interesting products. do you really feel a lack of interesting stuff to purchase?

Tichy 15y ago
I have mostly sufficient ideas for stuff to buy, but I am also probably living in my own filter bubble. I don't even know many web sites to visit - basically I only visit Hacker News, some German news mag I'd like to quit, and a friend's forum. How do you stumble across a small online toy shop with a choice selection?
- ippisl 15y ago
  I did a few search for stuff like "interesting online toy store" , "fun toys" "best toy blog" etc, doing a bit google search , a bit blog search and following a few links and got those: http://www.drtoy.com/ http://www.drtoy.com/ - seems more geared towards adults , helping them choose best toys for children. http://www.scientificsonline.com/ http://www.scientificsonline.com/ scientific toys http://www.yoyo.com http://www.yoyo.com is by amazon, looks pretty nice http://www.designertoyawards.com/categories/20 http://www.designertoyawards.com/categories/20 they won an award http://www.toptoysblog.com/ http://www.toptoysblog.com/ toys with reviews It isn't harder than discovering interesting programming tools, for example , which is to say, pretty easy. But it's a lot of text.I wonder if there's something a lot more visual , video based for the children.
  - Tichy 15y ago
    Thanks - I must admit I did not actually do that search myself before. It is getting harder to trust online, too - top results are likely to be SEOed, Reviews are fake and so on (not the sites you picked, but in general). I would probably be able to pick something from the sites you found, but a real shop would still be more fun for now. Especially with the toys, it would for example be nice to check the kind of sounds they make. We just got two toys for Christmas that are unbearable...