This weekend I took this on as a perspective question – what if books looked like the web? The next question was – why don’t they look like the web? I should have been thinking about turkey.

It is a simple answer to the second question – user experience. It doesn’t look like the web because if you had placed in front of you Herman Melville’s Moby Dick with contextual ads for free and a version in the classic book format for $14.99, I can guarantee that you would buy the classic format.

In print or on the web Moby Dick with contextual ads is not the same experience. A true fail whale. See for yourself after the jump.

Click for full size.

I’m sure the ad supported model of books has been tried and it failed. I fit hadn’t everything for sale today would be ad laden. What won out is the classic format without ads in the copy. Advertisements are an unwanted distraction from the experience that is the book. Whether it is delivered as an e-book, print or on the web – ads will ruin the experience.

The third question is this line of logic is that if the book publisher model is to charge to an ad free experience so they can stay in business – will web users pay for classic book experience? I think they will. Maybe it should be offered as a premium edition of a product. Not being distracted by advertisements has value.

Value is the key to addressing pay walls. The recent discussions about pay walls and how they suck or won’t work has become ridiculous. Books are a pay wall. Televisions are a pay wall. Your car is a pay wall. Riding in a taxi is a pay wall (thanks for the ads to distract me from the driver). Starbucks is a pay wall. In all of these cases we pay for value and experience. It is time that the web follow this model.

Pay wall naysayers are the equivalent to the codgers that said the internet was a fad. Get over yourselves, the long tail and trying to have the biggest audience on the planet. The concern should be about creating content of value that people will pay for. Continuing to give away content for free or ad support it perpetuates a continued failure to see the economic reality that the long tail means going out of business.

Not all publishers will need this model but the indies sure do. They need technology to allow for micropayments and publishing with syndication for partners and accounting metrics. Waiting on Google or pointing to models like YouTube running ads over video are a waste of time. They are appropriate when you have a nearly unrestricted ability to scale.

For publishers not to be charging, in my mind, stifles innovation and artistic creation. If ones sole focus is on creating value for your core audience and isn’t spent worrying about the fringes a better product is produced. When all of the publisher’s time is spent on trying to pitch the value of their content to advertisers and ad networks there is an inherent diminished engagement with the audience. Simply because the value of the content isn’t presented for the advertiser, the value of the audience is presented for sale.

Book publishers stay in business because they charge for content. Book publishers keep Amazon in business. Supporting web publishers by paying for content can help to ensure that the next Moby Dick could come from the web.

Why don’t books look like web pages? Because they would suck.

Will web user pay for a classic book experience? Maybe. If no one tries to buck the prevailing meme that pay walls won’t work online the answer is, No. If publisher step up and provide value and a better experience the answer is, Yes.

About this example: You can download PDF’s of the versions Classic Book Format and Ad Supported Format (imagine this version on an ebook reader) of this first page of Melville’s Moby dick. You can also see the ad supported version online as a web page. It was created using Google Adsense and custom Amazon and eBay ads through their API’s. The keywords used to generate the ads were selected after I ran an auto-tagging script against the entire copy of this page. Enjoy.

Here’s a close up of the two versions.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

What if Books Looked Like Web Pages? is a post from: TechStartups.com

I’m sure this isn’t because of me or my post yesterday, Ebay Partner Network and Transparency, but it is welcome news:

“Click Filtering (on-going enhancements)

We have had a few reports that some of our affiliates have been experiencing issues with bots inflating their click numbers. We have been working on a few additional click filtering rules to continue to improve our capabilities in this area and ensure click counts in ePN are an accurate representation of valid clicks. We will continue to roll these out in the coming weeks.

We continue to try and improve the tools and reporting that is available for our partners. If you have thoughts or suggestions, please send them to Affiliates-Program-US@ebay.com. While we may not be able to respond to all suggestions personally, we value your input greatly.”

That is the last of three sections in an email sent out by eBay today to keep network partners in the loop. And I have to say this is the closest that I have seen them come to taking feedback from their users into consideration (publicly).

Maybe eBay has learned from the great seller revolts after they changed programs and how those got started.

This email doesn’t appear to come from the same group that is handling transparency, but regardless it’s a step in the right direction – especially if eBay can deliver on better reporting. Not only does it create transparency but it will allow partners and developers to see just how effective their efforts are. The bottom line is that opening up all the tracked data will make this a stronger program that can drive revenue for eBay – the reason to have an affiliate and developer program.

I’m not sure if I shared how great their shopping API is but it is simply awesome. Like another great API, Twitter, it is very powerful. With better click data that includes IP and user-agent strings eBay could see a growth in full blown applications or ad networks being built from their platform.

You will be able to sleep better at night, I am sure, knowing that I will be sending my thoughts to the Affiliates Program email address. My first thought will be to ask them why it is an Affiiliate address and not a Partner one.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Ebay Partner Network Click Filtering is a post from: TechStartups.com

Like you, I’ve been a member and user of PayPal’s service for years. They were early to the game and grew accordingly with a product that made buying online drop dead easy. With an exit to eBay they were integrated into a powerful money minting machine.

They also joined a culture of apathy and disdain for those that help them line their pockets – developers.

Like their acquirer, PayPal continued to build a mediocre developer community, foster it with partial code samples, limited information and limited support. Now in kindness to PayPal they did begin providing better support a few years ago and are pretty good when it comes to engaging  developers on the message boards offering solutions – a problem that has plagued eBay for years.

Visit any eBay developer board and you’ll find replies that focus on posting in the wrong thread topic instead of offering a solution. It shows the developers that they aren’t a priority.

I was looking forward to the release of the brand spanking new PayPal X Developer Network. Hoping that my previous experience wouldn’t hold true and that there would be a renewed focus on the developers that are integrating the PayPal gateways and API’s into their platforms. But they let me down.

The new developer community site is plagued with broken links, the same old code samples and forums that stopped loading threads on October 28. The intention is there but the execution is hit and miss.

I can forgive them this time, though. Because it appears that their intention is to focus fully on their API implementations and integrate the legacy products like IPN and PDT into a more standardized solution.

Which will help PayPal as it moves toward working with developers to create a wider range of solutions like mobile and in application micro-payments.

Something else of note with the new PayPal X Developer Network is the improved site IA. Thank you to the person(s) that restructured the information and worked with the UI person(s) to highlight what developers want most . . . documentation.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

PayPal X Developer Network Same as it Always Was is a post from: TechStartups.com