:skyecade online

I’m having a lot of fun over at goodreads.com. I’ve always been a fan of the concept of social networks, but I have yet to find one that I really enjoy. Until now. I think one problem is the fact that other social networking sites are too broad in their social networking scope. I tend to like niches, or little organized groups over large, free-for-all networks.

But it’s not enough just to be a niche. Flixter.com is a social networking site devoted to movies. The problem with that site is that its design and content attract a younger crowd. It’s sort of like a Myspace for movie lovers. Case in point, Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift averaged 4 stars. — Seriously?

Goodreads is a little more neutral, like Facebook rather than Myspace. And the simple fact that it’s a website devoted to the love of books, helps it attract a much more sophisticated crowd. My only criticism would be with regard to the website’s design and usability. Though it’s not awful, it’s definitely not great. They need to make it a little more intuitive to navigate around the site. The website could also use a Web 2.0 face lift; it looks very 1999ish.

Other than that, I think it’s a really fun site with a ton potential. It was launched in January of 2007, so it’s still young in Internet years. The user reviews (though not quite as good as Amazon’s user reviews) are extremely helpful, and I have to imagine they will become even more helpful over the years. If you’re a bookworm like me, go check it out. I’m going to try shelfari.com as well. Shelfari is another social networking site for book lovers, and is bit more established than Goodreads. Shelfari also seems to have all of the Web 2.0 features that I mentioned were lacking in Goodreads. But I can’t be sure until I try it out for myself.

Speaking of books, I just finished Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. It was fan-freaking-tastic. I would highly recommend it.

     

Filed under: Books, Cyberculture
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I thought these three books were good enough to earn skyecade uber-elite seal of approval.

The Victorian Internet — This book was fantastic. My daughter bought it for me at a library book sale for 50 cents. The Victorian Internet chronicles the rise of the telegraph, as well as the astounding effects it had on the world. The most fascinating aspect of the book, to me anyway, was the comparison of the telegraph to the modern day Internet. The cultures surrounding these two technologies were/are eerily similar, each having their own bevy of underground elites. Remember the heyday of IRC? Yeah, like that. This is a must read for any geek.

The Alchemist — First, let me say that I knew nothing about this book, except that it seems to be on every self-help bloggers “favorite books” list. Eventually, after reading about it for the hundredth, I bought the book. I’m really glad I did. The Alchemist is an inspirational (and motivational) book about a young shepherd boy named Santiago and his journey to fulfill his personal legend (aka: his dreams.) And that’s the exact message the story is trying to convey, always follow your dreams! Excellent book if your looking for a good story and a little motivational pick-me-up.

The Dip — Ahh, The Dip. Here we have a well thought out collection of common sense. Yes, common sense. There probably isn’t much in this book that you don’t already know, but it’s good to have a refresher course every now and then. Seth Godin tells us that whatever we do in life, be the best at it. And anything that we can’t be the best at, quit. That’s kind of a crappy summary of the book — Seth actually does give good advice on how and why to live by the aforementioned guidelines. It’s a quick read, less than 100 pages, and could easily be read in one or two sittings. Or in my case, a week. It’s definitely not the best self-improvement book I’ve ever read, but for the money and time invested, it was well worth it.

     

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Too often do we read about customer service nightmares, and too rarely do we read about the pleasures of dealing with certain companies. I’ve always thought this was a bit backwards.

Well, I just had a great customer service experience and I want to give credit where credit is due. Last week I ordered a book from Amazon.com called Getting Things Done by David Allen. The book arrived, I went home, cracked open a beer, sat on my brand new lazy boy, and slowly opened the book — savoring that new book smell. Oddly enough, the book jumped right into the thick of things. No table of contents, no preface, nuttin. I was three pages into it when it dawned on me that I might be missing some pages. Sure enough, pages one through fourteen were no where to be seen. I was a little bummed, but I know that these things can happen from time to time. The first thing I did was to see if anyone had had similar problems with this particular title, and they had.

So I did the next obvious thing, I contacted Amazon. Or more precisely, they contacted me. While I was on their site searching for contact information, I came across a “Call Me” button. Being the spontaneous adventurer that I am, I clicked it. It then prompted me for my phone number and options for when I would like them to call me back; right now, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes. I really wasn’t doing anything at the time, due to lack of reading material, so I clicked right now. Almost the same instant I clicked the button, my phone started to ring. “No Way!” was all that came to mind. So I answered it. It was a recording telling me they were connecting me to Amazon. A few seconds later I was talking to an Amazon customer support representative. Since I was logged into my account when I clicked the “Call Me” button, he had all of my information already up on his screen. He politely asked me a security question to verify that I was who I said I was, and then went on to ask me how he could help me this evening. I went on to tell him my sad story. He apologized to me and assured me that he would send out a replacement immediately. All I had to do was print up the prepaid mailing label that he emailed to me and send my defective copy back to them free of charge.

It couldn’t have gone any better. The whole experience took less time than it did to write this blog entry. Anyways, that’s my story. I’ve always loved doing business with Amazon, and this is just one of the many reasons why.

     

Filed under: Books, Life, Random Bits
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