While the exact definition of a Barnes and Nobles Quamut remains unclear to my non-Millenial brain, I would venture that the term stands for what happens when you throw Home Depot, Wikipedia and a big chain bookstore into a blender and then hit ‘Combine’. It gives you clear, branded (and printable!) content that looks a lot nicer and feels a lot more targeted than run of the mill returns from your local search engine.
Jump into a category like Home Improvement and you find plumbing advice, stain removal tips and bike maintenance guidelines for free. There’s an option to get a six-page chart for a small fee and you’ve also got targeted book ads in a skyscraper ad on the side…
Is this the next generation of online bookselling? Hard to say. There’s a lot of good things about Quamut - perhaps the best thing is that it provides a solid test of whether consumers will pay for good quality, trustworthy and organized content when there is less solid information out there for free. For that reason alone, Quamut is worth watching. And if you want to learn how to make a beaded handbag, well, now you have two reasons.
