The Bookseller.com

28th August 2008

Philip Jones is the managing editor of theBookseller.com. He will blog with links and comment about the book business.

A new way to browse online?

24.06.08

It was the Greek bookseller Eleftheroudakis that first alerted me to the prospects of a different style of bookselling online, with its virtual book store. I liked it as concept but wondered whether its implementation would limit its usage. The jury is very much still out, but I still like the idea.

I liked less, but still like, Borders.com (US) Magic Shelf. The problem is that is just doesn't occupy enough space on the screen, meaning that it's clumsy to use and not at all like a shelf (which tends to occupy the eye rather more).

I also like BookRabbit: not just for its social networking side, but also its clever use of book buyers' own shelves. But these (by their very nature) are individual and not comprehensive.

But then along comes Zoomii, a solution that blows all these out of the virtual water. Built by Canadian book enthusiast Chris Thiessen, the site cleverly overlays a series of browsable book shelves on top of the Amazon database. You have to try it to get a feel for how it works.

Thiessen himself writes: "Because I love bookstores. Spending afternoons wandering the shelves. Happening across great books I didn't even know existed. But it's an experience I never found online. Online bookstores are wonderful. They've got amazing prices, huge selections, and they're open all the time. If you know exactly what you want, they're perfect. But somehow I kept coming back to the bookstore just to browse. Zoomii is my attempt to bring online as much of the real bookstore experience as possible."

The site appears to have picked up a bit of buzz since going online last week. One blogger commented: "I love browsing through bookstores but have to go about 15 miles to get to the nearest one. With the price of gas these days, it's wonderful to be able to have the same experience from home. The only thing missing is being able to pick it up and look inside."

Others love it too. With some suggesting that Amazon might buy Zoomii.

Amazon also likes it (Zoomii has no direct relationship with the giant web retailer, it just makes money through the associates programme).

If Zoomii develops in the ways one can imagine (3D? Pick up and browse?), book buying online might just become a real pleasure - a journey, if you like, closer than ever before to actual browsing in a high street shop.

This could be important: at the moment the main thing Amazon has going for it is convenience and price. It remains (for book lovers) something of a guilty purchase, as former Bookseller editor Louis Baum admitted in The Bookseller's recent anniversary issue.

Might making it a pleasure reduce the obsession with price?

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