This evening I was browsing through my RSS feeds, and came across an interesting entry from The Digital Reader. It detailed how since 2009 Amazon has been selling more eBooks than paper books. In 2009, they sold 143 eBooks to every 100 paper books, and now in 2010 they sell 180 eBooks to every 100 paper books. What does this actually mean for the future of book stores?
For large brick and mortar stores, it means that customers are slowly moving away from physical books. It also means that their competition (Amazon) is already well ahead, again. Having crushed them in physical book sales, now they have a huge lead in providing a shopping environment for digital books.
I do believe that stores selling physical books will eventually become a thing of past, though I believe that this vision future is still far off. Stores selling physical books cannot rest and wait for that day to arrive, they need to innovate, and they need to do that very soon. Yesterday if possible.
I also believe that this will be a problem for book stores of any shape, size or purpose. University Book Stores, Independent Book Shops, and even Used Book Shops, will all eventually feel the squeeze of the digital book. We’ve seen this happen with digital music, and it is becoming more and more evident with digital video. Mostly I’m surprised it has taken this long for text to go digital.
So what do these stores need to do? Give up and go home? Surrender and hope Amazon or Google buy them? No. These stores need to focus on something sorely lacking in every retail environment, customer service. These stores need to reevaluate what makes them great, and what turns customers away and forces them online.
For example, a used book store has many built in benefits. Prices will be low, creating a natural draw. The book seller will see every book that enters and leaves the store. Popular books will be readily available, and less popular ones hopefully less available.
What these small stores will inevitably run into is lack of motivation. Where should they go next when things have been good in recent years? Financial instability has pushed people to find cheap books. Green products are in vogue, and 100s of pages of recycled paper sold for a profit are a natural yes. It is easy to see these positives, relax, and hope things remain this way. They could sit back and pray that people will always feel nostalgic for the feel or smell of a paper book. They could also keep things the same because the customers might not like change. Essentially the market will push this store to stay put, to enjoy the moment of comfort. In reality, now is the time to strike and get ahead of the competition.
I envision a book store where an owner is willing to cut the fat from their operation, and run lean and aggressive. Make sure the staff is knowledgeable, make the top priority customer service, and surprise every customer with a terrifyingly accurate knowledge of every book in the store and where to find it. I see stores branching online to bring customers to their store, or to bring the store to their customers. I see stores creating an environment and experience that can’t be had online. Comfy chairs, coffee bars, well organized books, rows of books to discover, and friendly staff waiting to serve every customer. The end goal should be positive and fond memories of the store.
A good book store can help a customer find a replacement for a crappy book. A poor web experience can also easily replace a crappy book store
Let us hope that small book stores do no bring about their own demise through lack of trying.

Wow was yesterday’s post pointless. Every major news outlet on the planet is reporting on the iPhone 4 press conference, and now I’ve now written a blog post about it. I feel shallow, and unsure why I felt it was so important to write that post.

In the mean time I could have been writing about way more interesting, or important things going on in the world like:

The UK department store banning airbrushing and touchups on photos in their stores. The article includes a really eye opening photo of what is done to the images we see every day.
Check it out over at Huffington Post.

or

This guy in New Zealand, who is paralyzed, but walking thanks to his bionic REX (robotic exoskeleton) legs.
Again over at Huffington Post

or

That The Loop (Super Awesome Local Business) is losing their beautiful home to Take a Hike. If you know of any available places, or can offer them any help, I’m sure that they would greatly appreciate it.
The Loop’s Bad News Announcement

or
That there is still a massive outpouring of Bullshit coming from the BP headquarters, as reported by the ever vigilant staff at The Onion.
Read the Story Here

Hopefully these stories were more important, engaging, relevant, and entertaining, than yesterday’s post.

Today finally saw the long expected Press Conference from Apple in response to the iPhone 4 signal loss complaints. I was not surprised in the least to see that Apple presented a very strong case which addressed how there really isn’t any problem to begin with.
The iPhone 4 has all the same signal loss issues of any modern smartphone, or any model of iPhone for that matter. I was able to reproduce this same signal loss issue on both an iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, much to the surprise of my boss.
All told I think the very detailed explanation of the non-problem and it’s causes was a smart move on Apple’s part, as well, offering customers a free bumper case is an extremely cost effective way of making sure that anyone who would complain no longer has a reason to.
I personally don’t think there really is a problem with the iPhone 4 antenna, especially when complaints and returns are at an all time low for the iPhone product line. I believe that this was just a case of media outlets, and jealous competitors taking a cheap shot at Apple over a problem they all actually share.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d gotten an iPhone last summer I’d be running out to get an iPhone 4 on July 30th.

I’ve posted infrequently enough on this blog, that the last title I reviewed was Chuck Palahniuk’s previous book Pygmy. That book still holds the title of the only book I have not finished in over five years. Thankfully his newest book is nothing at all like Pygmy, and I had trouble putting it down instead of picking it up. Coming in at 192 pages, this book was a quick read, but certainly did not lack in content. I was surprised after finishing it, just how much had been packed into the short period of time I spent with it. This book has a very interesting point of view, which Palahniuk fans will know he excels at exploiting. Without spoiling the story, this is a story of the last days of an aging Hollywood Star, as seen from her seemingly harmless and ever helpful housemaid. I guarantee this book will be nothing like you expect it to be, and that is really half the fun of the story. Also the cover is quite sharp, which is a common characteristic of his work. Not sure if this is a result of the author’s influence, or just a very creative art director at his publishing house. Either way, it makes this book very difficult to miss.

It is done.
As of 12.23pm on May 31, 2010 I am officially free of the shackles of Facebook.
No more friend requests, pokes, photo tags, farmville black sheep, mafia wars gangsters or survey requests.
I feel great to be free, and in complete and total control of what and where I post things to the internet.

I had such a great time tonight giving my presentation on Social Networking. The group that attended was really great, and I hope you all learned a lot. I’m glad I was able to answer most of your questions, and hope I didn’t leave too much information out.
Thanks again to Elaine Edwards for thinking of me when looking for someone to give this presentation, and thank you to St. Patrick High School for having me in as their speaker.
If you would like to download the slideshow or handout click these links:

Slideshow Download

Handout Download

If you have any other questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at blog@myjorgenson.com. Otherwise feel free to comment here.
Also for those of you looking for the links on how to Quit Facebook, Go Here. You will be prompted to enter your Facebook login and password. After you enter those, you will be shown the page for permanently deleting your account. Just remember that you need to make sure you don’t try to log into your account at all for 14 days, or it will cancel the request to delete.

Tonight I will be giving a presentation on Social Networking entitled Your Kids Online: A Parent’s Guide.

As a result I’ve decided to commit complete and total Facebook Suicide. I’ll be permanently deleting my Facebook account along with 13730 people on Quit Facebook Day, May 31st 2010. The reason I’m choosing to delete my account as opposed to simply removing all of my private information, is because I do not wish to be a reason for my friends and family to choose to continue to use this service.
I am not trying to say that Facebook is a useless service, and that it is not right for some people. I just feel, that if my information is going to be on continual public display, I’d like it to be on my own terms. That is why I have things like this blog and my twitter account.
If you think you might be interested, make sure to check out the website for Quit Facebook Day.
Or if you can’t wait until May 31, 2010 to quit then follow this link for information on How to Quit Facebook.
See here for my original inspiration to Quit Facebook, courtesy of Adbusters.
Also if you are in Thunder Bay, make sure to check out my presentation on Social Networking entitled “Your Kids Online: A Parent’s Guide”. The presentation if May 26, 2010 at 7pm, to be held at St. Patrick High School. No admission charge, Free Refreshments and door prizes will be available.

And on the third one hundred and ninety-seventh day he rose from the dead and began to write his blog again.

I have been inspired (and nagged) to come back and write on this blog. It seems I’ve found enough things to write about, and found ways to prevent rushed writing or posts of epic length. Also I’m tired of hearing people ask, “are you going to post anything soon? I’ve been checking since November.” This should keep everyone concerned happy from here out.

I will say part of why I lost track of this blog was school. Though I’m not willing to say that my program was anywhere near difficult enough to prevent from writing here, I simply had too many distractions over that period of time. The other thing that kept me thoroughly occupied was Twitter. It seems there are occasions where 140 characters just doesn’t cut it, and for those times I will be writing here.
So from this day forward, I promise to write on a more regular basis than I have at any point on this blog, which means I need to post once more this year, and I should be pretty well off.

Anywho, I’ll see you later this week with why I’m committing Facebook Suicide, and maybe a review of something.

Ciao
- E

Earlier this year I began a mass cleansing of useless but valueable objects in my life. Near the top of the stack was my original silver Nintendo DS and a stack of games to go with it. Since I got rid of the DS I’ve missed it on a few occasions, but not enough to warrant going out and getting one of the shiny new Nintendo DSi.
So I got to thinking, why is it that I don’t miss my Nintendo DS? I did play the games on it, and I know that most of the games for it don’t have any direct versions available on other platforms I own. Then I realized, I just have versions of these games. I don’t miss playing New Super Mario Bros. on DS because I’ve got all the Mario games on the Wii and I’ll be playing Super Mario Galaxy 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii this winter. I don’t miss Legend of Zelda on DS because I still have an unbeaten copy of Twilight Princess collecting dust on the shelf.
There was one Nintendo DS original game I never got to play and that game was Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. It was designed from the ground up for the Nintendo DS and its touch screen interface, and was a step outside the normal for the GTA franchise. But I just read some exciting headlines today, and it seems that GTA: Chinatown Wars is being adapted this fall for, the PSP, and Apple’s iPhone & iPod Touch. Thankfully I just so happen to own a nice shiny iPhone 3GS, and I’ll be looking forward to downloading that game, regardless of the crazy price they’ll be charging.

So thanks to Rockstar Games being awesome and realizing the iPhone is a valid game platform, I will never again miss having my Nintendo DS. Today I am a happy geek!