What's Up Doc?

We were somewhat taken aback that The Bookseller reports today ' Buyers Circle BookRabbit'. The report that‘four buyers have expressed an interest in taking over the e-commerce side of Retail8, which includes the BookRabbit and Samedaybooks websites’.

Times are not easy, so new ventures such as BookRabbit are often prone to speculation as investment is high. From one side offers may start to look an easy way to recoup investment and move on and from the other a potentially cheap buy before value is established. There is little wrong there and this will always happen especially when working capital tightens and the business demands more investment. Some may suggest that it could be a easy way for a trade house to create social traction.

BookRabbit has many good things going for it, but still has to deliver if it is to make that leap to be a serious contender in an already crowded space. It has had its press feature articles but its now time to spend to maintain its high profile and deliver traffic.

Some may question whether BookRabbit has that combination of social and commerce to make a compelling case, or whether it just becomes another social site with much rabbit and little commerce. When you look at others it’s often very easy to see their attraction, stickiness and potential, but again some would question whether its here in enough quantity to make a difference. Its not a case of building a social grouping and then flipping the commerce on as others have, but having the commerce model and social side by side from the start. This is a tall order unless there is something that is so different and compelling it makes sense from the offset. We hope that they can resist the offers but if someone comes knocking and has the cash, many would be tempted to take it.

MySpace or MurdochSpace

MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation and is the Internet’s largest social network, has been introducing limits on the software tools that its users can embed in their pages. The end game is to monopolise the commercial capitalisation of its 90 monthly visits and stop others delivering advertising or enabling transactions.
Some would argue, this then becomes MurdochSpace and is no longer MySpace.

MySpace says that it will block all third-party software — also called widgets — when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it also now objects to software that enables users to sell or advertise without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with M******Space.

The corporates that bought up these highly active new social space didn’t do it to spread love, peace and social understanding they did it to generate money. Google will pay MySpace at least $900 million over the next three years to serve ads to the site’s users. Others have lined up for a slice of the lucrative audience.

In the past, MySpace failed to block companies like YouTube that began successful businesses from MySpace’s pages. The question of whether YouTube would have made it without MySpace is immaterial now but as the doors close and M******Space is spawned it is clear that new social spaces will have to fight for their own space and audience.

More import is the realisation that previous attempts others have made to try to dictate people’s Internet experience has ended failing. Today the fickle are only one click away from the next destination.