Web 3.E? (e for everything)

What if major websites such as Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, NYT etc teamed up with major ISPs to offer for a flat monthly fee an internet service connection that comes with unlimited download of books, movies, songs, articles, papers, website memberships etc? Say for $100 a month or whatever deal will make sense, I would not only get a fast internet connection but also free access to the iTunes store, Netflix and Amazon where I can download as many movies, songs and books I want.

It sounds like a crazy idea and a business model that is not viable. I believe though that in the future we will move into a model where everything digital will be offered as a package. That's because digitization and the internet cannibalizes prices and in so doing we get to consume it more and more as a way of life. So maybe another 10 years and we will move closer to this all-in-one-package model. The concept is not new, some restaurants offer all you can eat deals, why not the same for internet and online service providers?

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What will bookstores in the future look like?

Despite Amazon, people like to visit bookshops. On a recent class discussion on the future of Amazon, I had the thought of a new bookstore concept that blends Amazon and the traditional bookstore. I was thinking of creating a physical bookstore that sells paperbacks without stacking any of them on its shelves. The shelves will instead stack thousands of kindles with book titles on them. The kindles will look like physical books using 3D holography. When a customer picks a kindle book to browse, the titles of all the books next to it change to become more relevant to the content browsed.

Because there's no physical paper inventory, there are no sections. The customer types a keyword in a little screen and all the titles near him change. It's like browsing online in a physical space. When the customer decides which books to buy, he places the order, pays and laser printers at the back of the store print out the paperback. Books will be less expensive to buy and the experience of a visit to a physical location preserved. The second-hand bookstore will probably not be able to compete and die.

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Pay-Per-Month Online Bookstores

This thought was posted on Thinkaloo on 26 March 2008 by member nadia

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I love to read books and I was thinking of a new business model for online bookstores. Allow customers who pay a monthly fee to either rent or buy as many e-books as they want. When the customer downloads the books, the publishers and writers will then share a commission from the monthly fee that was paid by the customer.

This is value for money for customers who will have access to as many books as they want. Writers and publishers will benefit from increased sales of their books. I am curious if Amazon or Barnes & Nobles or any of the other major online bookstores will move into this new business model.

The model already works for music and movies, it is a matter of applying it to books next as more of them become available in digital format.