Scott Catalog 2015 Digital Plans

According to a post made by Chad Snee on a certain forum "down under," Scott will be releasing the 2015 Catalog in eReader format in "No firm date, but probably within the next couple of months."

I'm not sure how you'll be able to browse a catalog on a Kindle size screen, but I am interesting in seeing. Obviously the bigger screen of a tablet is better. but existing eReader formats (azw3. mobi, epub) all can be read on Kindle and nook size devices.

We'll see what becomes of this.

Any idea on cost yet?

Terry

Nope. Just the one post. Most eBooks are cheaper than the printed version, but we'll see if Amos follows that route.

I think Amos has been between a rock and a hard place for a while. Their online issue of Linn's was stuck on Mattercast for years because Mattercast went belly up.

Their iPad/iPhone catalog was made a company they created called Amos Digital. They were trying to market their digital product to other companies and then at one point Amos Digital just up and folded. MY guess is, their developer left. I have emails from people at Amos telling about features they were considering for a 2.0 product, including collection management.

What Amos really needs to do is move away from the idea of a printed catalog and move to a database. Printed catalogs are fine and still have their place, but in a digital world, I want to use my catalog like an iPod library. I want to be able to browse by Country, Year, Type. I want to mark off what I have and mark off what I need and have it generate a shopping list for me.

What Amos ought to do is find a couple of first year IT students/computer geniuses and pay them a salary beyond their wildest dreams (read: reasonable) for part time work (all they'd need). And thay would have the products up and running in no time.

Terry

I was shocked to read a post from Mr. Snee a few months back that Amos does not already have the entire catalog in database format. Ideally they would have ported the information into a SQL format 10-15 years ago and have been using it to populate whatever publishing format they use to lay out the hardcopy catalog (i.e. FrameMaker or whatever).

Now Amos is facing the expensive and risky decision of either having to keep the original methods/tools they use but in parallel launch a massive project of developing a SQL database that can become the foundation of their catalogs for decades to come or walk away from the legacy work they have in place and start anew.

No offense Terry, but that isn't something that you simply hire a couple of young pups to do. Considering that their future depends upon the quality of the database design (and the info in it) it would seem prudent to find an experienced DB designer. Certainly other could be used for the lesser project tasks but you want a good designer/visionary to get a quality end product.

The fact that they do not already have this in place, and the fact that they have already tried once and failed, reflects the magnitude of the project and a cultural resistance to change. This is not a simple decision for them, it means a complete change in course for their company. It takes a LOT of courage to change the course of a company like Amos with its long history; certainly a decision that can make or break a person's career. If the demographics they sold into here was a younger audience I assume it would make this decision a bit easier but truth is that philately is not renown for embracing technology.

Hopefully they can find the courage, funds, and vision to make this happen sooner rather than later. But just like the APS they need to understand that this would be a commitment to technology and not a concession to technology.
Don

They tried once and failed because of what they did. Their app simply was a wrapper around a password protected PDF file. And to annoy the user, the app had advertisements running along the bottom. So you pay for the catalog, which really wasn't any cheaper than the printed version, and on top of that, you need to stare at banner ads on the bottom of the screen as you're flipping through it.

Overall, the experience wasn't a good one.

None taken, 51studebaker, but I disagree. The numbers of genius teenage college students worldwide are increasing. I wasn't referring to any first year student, but students like those on this list (link below), many of whom are USA students. Some of them have already successfully designed stuff that has eluded professionals, and I suspect that for all of them complexity would present no problem.

I admit my post was on the whimsical side, but after reading about this bunch of youngsters I really do think solving a versatile digital catalogue listing program would be easy for them.

http://www.thebestschools.org/featu...t-teenagers/

Terry

They really need data entry people to enter all the stuff in a database.

Terry,
I concur that there are plenty of great young minds around to hire but this is more than a programming task. It is a sweeping corporate paradigm shift; and one that comes along with an very large investment in both the infrastructure and human resources. Someone has to 'sell' the change well beforehand, get everyone to 'buy-in' before any substantial money is spent. As I mentioned a concession won't do here, it has to be a commitment.

So while it's possible to find a new young gun, hire him/her, appoint him/her as project manager, there is still the looming issue of getting the rest of the company to follow this person into a unknown future. Usually corporations want to limit risk as much as possible. Given the size of the investment and commitment they would have make I would guess that they would want a person with corporate experience to lead an important project like this.
Don

Having their catalogs in electronic format is nice, but I'm still not interested unless it's searchable by most (if not all) fields in the catalog and I can also use it as an inventory/want list program. In other words, I want a database I can manipulate towards my own ends, not just a version I can read on a screen.

If the information in their catalogs is in a database format of one kind or another, that functionality shouldn't be difficult to provide. Ideally it would be web based so I can acess it from any computer with internet access, with my inventory/want list stored under my login. Also that way I wouldn't have to worry about losing it if my own computer crashed or my house burned down. And since it would be online, values could automatically update with new releases. I don't think that's asking for too much in 2014, and I can't imagine I'm the only one who would like (and be willing to pay for) that functionality.

If I were really dreaming, I'd ask for the ability to create custom album pages on the fly, but I imagine that building in something like that would take quite a bit more work and I can't see that coming (at least from Amos) anytime soon.

Yes Don, all good points. I was forgetting the machine that has to function behind the design.

Terry

A company that makes an entire line of albums for every country in the world would probably not want to provide this functionality.

SQL is the only logical database to use as the backend; which flavor of SQL is the decision they will have to make. But with a robust SQL database in place they could easily use the same data to populate any kind of online interface (various eReader, web app, or even allow others to access and display their data for a fee). And of course it would also be quite possible to also add an interface in which users could layout their own album pages using the very same SQL database.
Don

Until someone else does and then they have to scamble and catch up. Wouldn't it be better to beat them to the punch? They should at least think about it and put it on their long-range radar. It would be disruptive for Amos, to be sure, but I would think there would still be ways to make money off that functionality, e.g. that function would require a premium subscription at a premium price. Again, it may never happen, but someone somewhere at Amos should at least be thinking about it and having discussions.

Bottom line is that Amos is in the business of selling information in printed format, which also includes album pages. Anyone in the business of selling printed and printable information had better figure out now how they're going to survive over the next few decades or be forced out by their customers or competitors. This means serving your product to your customers in the way they demand, and I think the ability to print your own, high quality pages as you go is something collectors will come to expect. Amos needs to not only look at where the market is today, but where it will be in 10-20 years. The generation that grew up without computers will be gone by then and the collectors that are still around are going to be increasingly frustrated by using antiquated tools in the 21st century.

Edited to add: Hingeless pages likely won't be printable for quite awhile yet, so they'd still be able to sell those, and I'd imagine that hingless pages will still be quite popular. It would just be the standard, non-hingeless pages that should be printable. Who knows, they might even be able to sell more pages. Some collectors might not be willing to spring for an entire country album, but they may be willing to buy a few pages here and there for certain stamps they collect.

The question they should be asking themselves is what is it costing them not to do it. It must be very expensive to update their current information if it is not on a database. Not to mention the cost of having a product that is not customer-friendly. I hope they have representatives that monitor these discussions.

If the stuff is not in a database now, the cost is going to be high. The question for them is, is it worth it? I don't know what the Scott division of Amos makes a year. I don't know if it's enough to justify the cost, especially if they don't see a decline in paper catalog sales over the years.

And for US, a database already exists in the form of StampManage and EZStamp. They could acquire one of these companies and get a jump start that way.