Amazon - purveyor of books.
Sorry, purveyor of books and CDs.
Sorry, books, CDs and videos DVDs.
Actually, I guess it's now books, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts, cameras, mp3 players, duvets, ovens, garden gnomes,... you get the idea.
Well, they've finally forgotten why they came to the party in the first place. They're so overwhelmed by their desire to do recommendations, you might like, reviews, rate this, tag that, other kitchen appliances that might go well near this book, other people who once sat on this book by accident on a train,... you get the idea of that too - that they've forgotten to tell the customer what the product is actually about.
See the screen grab on the right hand side. Now look carefully for the bit that says "This book is about..." - keep looking. Now, look some more. And again... see it now? Now? No? Really? You're right! It's not there!
I've always hated that people hold up Amazon as the example of how to get it right. They didn't get it right. They just made it! Ford didn't make it big because they made the best cars. They just knew how to make them cheap, market them right and then keep the ranges going. Amazon is the same. They were first to the party, and so, when people looked to buy online they flocked to the only place they'd ever heard of; Amazon.
They didn't 'set the standard' they just 'became the standard'.
Just because Amazon do it, doesn't mean you should. It also doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it differently. Provided you've followed good user centred design principles and tested your experiments with real people, and they like it, then go for it. You're doing the right thing!
When people buy books they want:
- What the cover's like
- What the publisher says it's about
- What someone who knows about books says about it
- What other people like them say about it
- To read a couple of pages (my wife always reads the first and last!)
- To see how much it is.
- To save it, or buy it
Then they may want to explore to see what else is available, in which case they look for recommendations and intelligent cross-sells.
Now look at the Amazon page - it's got all the elements I talked about (except the most important one) - but they're just all over the shop. Literally. There's no sense that I can 'flow' through this page in a natural way. I've got to work hard to wade through the rubbish and I still don't find out what the book is about. The only reason they get away with it is that people have just got used to it. They have learned how to maneuver to what they want.
Have Amazon taken Web 2.0 too far and think they no longer have to do anything? That the audience will enerate ALL of their content for them? They've finally lost it. Go buy from Waterstones at least they're a real book shop with people who love books...