The results of the corporate sweepstakes are in and here are the winners and losers.

I go first.

• Amazon.com. How could I have overlooked it the first time? Amazon has truly invented something unique — the computerized cognate (look it up) of the bookstore. Adding innovation upon innovation, Amazon has simulated key features of the bookstore experience and piled on new ones of its own. Examples:
• The “Look Inside” feature lets you browse before you buy
• Customer reviews give guidance (but take them with a grain of salt)
• Recommendations, based on what you’ve bought (sometimes annoying but often useful)
• Capitalized phrases, concordance and text stats for more guidance
• Gaggles of additional features — “plogs”, customer discussions, general forums, “product wikis”, tell-a-friend, “listmania” and others — I haven’t even tried yet

Amazon also offers authors and publishers fab-o sales tools — “Search Inside” (huge!), keywording, tagging, search suggestions, and probably others I don’t know about.

Amazon is easy to use. And it’s cheap. What’s not to like? (Except if you’re a brick-and-mortar bookseller.)

Your reactions to my Starbucks posting were most interesting. Got a lot of love-hate re Starbucks … ditto Wal-Mart (mostly hate) … My daughter Shawn Goldstein nominates Martha Stewart for “Good taste and style for the masses” … Anne Core loves “TiVo!” … Barb Kaplowitz is mad at Nordstrom’s for being so wonderful Back in the Day, then turning merely ordinary … Pippin McGowan loves White Castle (Sliders! YECCCHH!) but condemns Best Buy. And Pip loves Borders (watch for my next blog, Pip).

Ken Seibert gets the last word. Ken’s mad for …

“Apple. One of the best companies on the planet. Why? Because they are unswervingly dedicated to providing the absolute best user experience in every product they make and every service they offer.

“Their retail directive is ‘Surprise and delight’. And how does one achieve this? By hiring the best of the best. Training them in the skills they need to be great. Ensuring that each and every staff member has what they need to support them in doing and becoming their best.

“Apple is a tough place to get a job with and an even tougher place to work (if you’re a slacker.) There are rules to follow and very high standards to meet. And managers who instead of criticizing and yelling when you do something questionable, simply begin by asking you how you came to the decision to do it the way that you did. And then suggest a mutually beneficial change.

“I learned this as a ‘Mac Specialist’. Essentially a sales clerk making $11 an hour in one of the Apple Stores. And I have never had so much expected of me while simultaneously being treated with the utmost respect. I’ve always appreciated Apple’s products. But after working with them for a few months, I’m even more impressed with their clarity and thoroughness of purpose. They are crystal clear about their mission and providing whatever resources are necessary to achieve it.

“That it’s resulted in ‘only’ a 3 to 4 percent market share of computers is SO not the point. They are not a competitor with Microsoft or HP or Dell or Gateway. Billy boy won the who’s-going-to-sell-the-most-operating-systems decades ago. He’s a master at it. One of the all time greatest business people ever. But he’s peddling mediocrity.

“Oops, I seem to be standing on a soapbox. Sorry. But may I just mention that the t-shirts they require retail staff to wear are made in a union, American shop instead of a child labor sweatshop.

“I think Apple is changing the culture by providing products and services that are a surprise and a delight instead of a struggle. It was the original promise of computers after all.”

Thanks, Ken.

Next time: Barnes & Noble.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. To Love Mercy has been added to the recommended reading list in Multicultural Literature classes at Wheeling (IL) High School — yet another coup for the redoubtable Debbie Smart, Barnes & Noble bookseller extraordinaire.

P.P.S. I’ll be meeting booksellers this Sunday (9 a.m.-noon) at the Mid-Atlantic Book Publishers Assn. It’s at the Valley Forge Convention Center, 1160 First Ave., King of Prussia PA.

Then, a week from Tuesday, I’ll be talking about the making and marketing of To Love Mercy in a “PubSpeak” sponsored by Washington Independent Writers (WIW). Date/place: Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7 p.m., La Madeleine, 7607 Old Georgetown Rd., Bethesda MD. WIW members: $5 in advance, $7 at the door. Non-members: $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Reservations required: (202) 775-5150 or rsvp@washwriter.org.