[trendroid]

" The art of browsing and the serendipity of finding unconnected books are hard to emulate in the virtual world. "

I am not so sure about this. I always felt internet made this experience seamless and super convenient. Also, the higher confidence(with more data) with which I buy a book has decreased the regret value in case it turned out to be not so good.

Of course, if their was a highly interactive bookstore which had best of both the worlds, I would always prefer it over the virtual one. Maybe someone should focus on making those.

[jiraaya]

IMHO, I don't find the statement very far from truth. Most of the online book stores today are recommending similar books through one algorithm or another. I have not yet seen any good implementation of a system that suggests unconnected books.

[minthd]

Actually when we talk about serendipity with regards to books online, it's pretty silly to disconnect that from serendipity on the internet itself - because if you're a book lover ,ideas from the internet will guide you towards books.

And while there's a debate whether internet increases serendipity or just puts us in a filter bubble(personally i think that if you want more seredipity , you'll get it), there's some research that supports "more serendity" claims:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/note0669-andre.pdf

[GFischer]

An Oculus Rift use case? :)

I mostly agree with your statement... Goodreads has made me discover a lot of books.

On the other hand, there are many good books I wouldn't have read if I had the selection available over the Internet (of course, many bad ones too, but I think everyone needs to read a few of those)... it makes it very easy to stay on your comfort zone.

[trendroid]

>An Oculus Rift use case?

Funny that you said that. That's exactly what I was imagining few minutes ago. People walking in virtual bookstores, meeting and discussing books with their friends in other countries, instantly exploring and accessing related articles, essays and research papers etc. The ability to touch and feel the book should eventually be integrated in this whole experience. The design decisions for making these interactive virtual shops are fascinating to ponder upon.

I wonder if meetup.com is considering investing money in VR considering most meetups would be online 20-30 years from now.

[eterm]

No one wants virtual worlds like that. A lot of the convenience of the internet is that it removes the need for such interaction. This leads to better information density online which leads to more buying confidence.

People were saying the same thing about Second Life, about how stores would need SL equivalents.

VR bookstores which try to model real bookstores will fall flat for the same reason Second Life ultimately failed to provide mainstream experiences.

[GFischer]

I haven't tried Second Life, but most virtual worlds I've seen do not provide the kind of experience I'm hoping for with Oculus Rift (maybe Oculus itself won't be able to either, but I can hope). And Second Life didn't become mainstream enough, and the user interface had a lot of friction.

Virtual worlds/Cyberspace are a very pervasive trope in mainstream culture (see Matrix, etc... down to the latest hits like Ready Player One)

Discoverability in many online stores sucks, and the browser doesn't lend itself to the kind of experience needed - I REALLY hope there can be a better user experience through virtual reality, and that access to an Oculus or similar device will remove friction - it needs to be a pain-free experience.

This thread got me thinking, and I already DO enjoy a kind of virtual experience that is very well suited to the Oculus - Google's Street View and similar. I and my girlfirend both love exploring through Street View. If something like the Street View experience can be replicated for shopping, it might become very popular.

My second thought is that a company that would be well suited to provide the kind of experience needed is Apple :) , but John Carmack and his team have been working very hard to provide an inmersive environment and a good user experience. I'm very excited for this technology.