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Footnote to a Timetable
March 25, 2008

I'm late to the party in writing about this piece, but as Jesse Kornbluth says, when it comes to books and multimedia, "We're all on our own timetables."

Kornbluth and his partners (including Carol Fitzgerald of The Book Report Network -- full disclosure: she's a friend) pitched the idea of multimedia in a bookstore to Barnes & Noble in 1995. Barnes & Noble wasn't quite ready for it then. Kornbluth details what happened afterwards, including his time as editorial director at AOL, where he made some real innovations in book programming.

More full disclosure, but fully relevant to this post: from 2004 to 2007 (after Kornbluth's tenure), I was the editor of AOL's book channel. In 2006, my team (which was headed by Jennie Baird and had launched AOL Coaches in 2005) pitched the idea of multimedia for an online bookstore to Barnes & Noble.

Guess what? They were ready for it then, but AOL wasn't. We're all on our own timetables.

By now we've all seen some of the great new features B&N.com is offering, and we've all heard that Barnes & Noble is ready to launch multimedia in bookstores. I'm excited about it, and I think B&N has gotten its timing just right -- they're doing this themselves and on their own terms, after learning a few things along the way from people like Kornbluth, Fitzgerald, and Baird.

Posted by Bethanne Patrick on March 25, 2008 | Comments (0)