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Title: Amazon.com: Get Big Fast by Robert Spector ISBN: 0-06-662042-2 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 22 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.64 (53 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Journalistic Material for Future Histories of Amazon.com
Comment: When I was trained as a historian, I came to realize that it is very important that contemporaries of an important events interview as many people as often as possible while the events unfold. These perspectives provide the key touchstones for the ultimate histories of the events. Usually such interviews are done by journalists. And that is what Robert Spector has done with the book, Amazon.com. I commend him for fulfilling that important role.
Those who want to understand what Amazon.com's brief history means for the New Economy, new business models, best practices in leadership and management, and its own future will have to look elsewhere. The book has almost no analysis of the material included here. Think of this book as though it were a series of magazine articles written over the last few years about Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos.
Mr. Spector makes an attempt to build a theme around the concept of Get Big Fast, first articulated in print by Robert Reid in the 1997 book, Architects of the Web. Amazon.com obviously pays attention to this idea based on the report on page 97 that the company handed out T-shirts with Get Big Fast written on them at its first employee picnic in 1996. But he fails to develop all of the dimensions of the point. How does this concept affect the stakeholders in Amazon.com (customers, users, partners, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and the communities the company serves)? How can the concept be adjusted to reflect changes in the company's external environment? How should a new company apply the concept? There is an important debate today about whether Amazon.com's current direction will or will not pay off for customers, employees, or shareholders. That debate is largely ignored in the book. That's an important omission that greatly limits the book's value.
I do recommend reading the book. It did add details to my knowledge about Amazon.com which I am sure will be valuable to me in the future as an author, reviewer, associate, and customer of Amazon.com.
This book is a good example of one form of the communications stall: failing to communicate what people are most interested in causes missed opportunities to make progress at a rapid rate.
Keep asking your questions about Amazon.com, and someone will eventually answer them. Perhaps it will be Amazon.com itself. That would be welcome.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good background reading but not enough on the detail
Comment: This book is a good introduction to Amazon and some of the basic philosophy behind the company. For those interested in establishing an e-commerce company it makes helpful reading, especially if our current knowledge of the technology is limited. Unfortunately the author did not interview Jeff Bezos and therefore much of the information was already in the public domain.
My criticism of the book is two fold. First there appears to be little or no information on the problems of establishing the technology and learning how to offer a customer centric service. As a long time customer of Amazon I for one have seen dramatic improvements in the customer service model; for instance allowing customers to consolidate orders and requesting part vs. full shipment are changes made after the first few years of trading. I think that a detailed analysis of these kinds of issues would have been really helpful.
Second the author appears to accept the business model that Amazon have developed - huge losses aimed at long-term market position without question. I would have liked a little bit more on the view expressed by Barnes and Noble that they don't want to win a hollow victory - owing the market and the losses.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Company, Not the River
Comment: The most telling detail on Amazon in this book was on page 132: When publishers and authors asked Bezos why Amazon.com would publish negative reviews, he (said) Amazon.com "was taking a different approach, of trying to sell all books...the good, the bad, and the ugly...doing that, you actually have an obligation...to let truth loose.'"
Whichever publishers and authors those were, they epitomize the sort of thinking that a new business model sweeps away. When someone responds negatively to their product they seek to silence that person. Failing that, they repackage the same product. If that doesn't work, they rename the product. Then they present the product in a different size. Anything, abosolutely anything, but listen to the customer who gripes.
I don't think Spector grasps the depth of this change. When Amazon gives a forum to ordinary people to speak where previously only "professionals" could, that's as profound a shift as from monarchy to democracy. Giving equal space on the electronic bookshelf to an arcane book on geology and a convenience store bestseller is as revolutionary as Martin Luther's 95 theses getting equal billing with the pronouncements of the pope. In terms of sales, if I can buy what I want instead of just what the "professionals" want me to buy, I'm going to buy more.
Most of the other factors in Amazon's success have been done before: hiring smart people, working long hours, providing great customer service...but no other retailer ever had a selection larger than the Library of Congress. And no other retailer ever gave customers around the globe a public forum for feedback. I would have liked to have seen more on this unique aspect of Amazon in GET BIG FAST, and less of the sort of business school platitudes that make up the "Takeaways" sections at the end of each chapter.
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Title: Big Shots, Business the Amazon.com Way: Secrets of the Worlds Most Astonishing Web Business (2nd Edition) by Rebecca Saunders, Rebecca Saunders ISBN: 184112155X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 15 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Perfect Store: Inside eBay by Adam Cohen ISBN: 0316164933 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Jeff Bezos: King of Amazon (Techies) by Josepha Sherman ISBN: 076131394X Publisher: Millbrook Pr Trade Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Jeff Bezos: Business Genius of Amazon.Com (Internet Biographies) by Judy Garty ISBN: 0766019721 Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc. Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Amazon Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools by Paul Bausch ISBN: 0596005423 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 20 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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