Amazon Sales Rank - Information Management

A quick post to catch up on this important issue:  Here is a well done summary and update of the Amazon sales rank glitch over Easter weekend from Information Today, Inc. "Amazonfail: How Metadata and Sex Broke the Amazon Book Search."  For anyone wanting to get the whole story from an information management point of view and the implications of the amazonfail event this is a required read.  

Catherine @ Reading In Montana

currently reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates

 

Tell Amazon to stop the Censorship

Here is a link to Change.org's petition telling Amazon to stop discrimination against LGBT books.  Here is the letter.  I encourage you to sign it.

Stop Discrimination Against LGBT Books

Dear Amazon,

It has come to my attention that you have recently de-ranked books with LGBT content on the pretense that this qualifies as "adult content."  At the same time, books about heterosexual porn stars, Playboy centerfolds, and techniques on how to "cure" homosexuality remain ranked.

This inconsistency shows overt discrimination and is unacceptable.  It's particularly disappointing coming from a public company that so many people trust, and threatens to permanently tarnish the Amazon brand.

As an Amazon customer, I demand that you end this discrimination immediately.  I also call on you to release a transparent set of guidelines on how books are classified so that the reasons behind the changes made are understood and future conflicts and unfair discrimination can be avoided.

I hope to see you resolve this matter soon, 

Catherine McMullen @ Reading In Montana

#amazonfail

I'm not sure what the whole story is on the #amazonfail situation over the weekend. I've been reading the news  and the blogs and cannot figure out exactly what has happened, with what intent, and by whom. Here is a salon.com post and a media memo post about the issue.  

As a librarian and a bookseller I believe that limiting what information people can easily find is a form of censorship. The possibility that amazon.com has limited searchability of titles they has deemed "adult" is frightening.  

As a small business owner who has made the investment and commitment to sell on the amazon.com platform I am concerned about this on a different level.  Reading In Montana is joined at the hip to amazon.com, in terms of marketing, branding, sales, and policy decisions such as this one.  Reading in Montana is not amazon.com.  The decision to remove sales rankings from books because of content is not a good business decision much less a good moral decision. 

I sell on amazon.com because I believed that anyone could find any book one wanted there quickly and without judgement.  Every book a reader, every reader a book. Now I'm not so sure.

This evening when I do a quick search "homosexuality" the first book that pops up on the sales rank influenced results list is "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality," I have to wonder what books are not showing up because they have been stripped of their sales rank and if a more queer positive and understanding title might have shown up in that search.   And well since I don't know the title of the book I'm looking for I don't know that I could find it on amazon.  The endless possibilities have been now become limited.

Amazon has issued a statement, an apology of sorts.  The whole situation is now a "ham-fisted cataloging error."  The censorship issue becomes yet another technical glitch.  I hope amazon.com and other such giants have been taking notes.

  

Catherine @ Reading In Montana