

He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work) - mqt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/business/media/14link.html?ex=1365825600&en=756bfe909ce8c62f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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reitzensteinm
I think this is disgraceful. The signal to noise ratio is so low already
without hundreds of thousands of automatically generated books flooding the
market.

If you find a book that's in a niche you're researching you'll probably snap
it up even if it is unreviewed, which means that for each book multiple people
are probably going to be duped. Basically, there's nothing intrinsically
immoral about writing a bad book, but I think there is something immoral about
generating hundreds of thousands of books that you know probably aren't going
to add much value in the hope that people are tricked into buying them.

>>> "While nothing announces that Mr. Parker’s books are computer generated,
one reader, David Pascoe, seemed close to figuring it out himself, based on
his comments to Amazon in 2004. Reviewing a guide to rosacea, a skin disorder,
Mr. Pascoe, who is from Perth, Australia, complained: “The book is more of a
template for ‘generic health researching’ than anything specific to rosacea.
The information is of such a generic level that a sourcebook on the next
medical topic is just a search and replace away.”

When told via e-mail that his suspicion was correct, Mr. Pascoe wrote back, “I
guess it makes sense now as to why the book was so awful and frustrating.”Mr.
Parker was willing to concede much of what Mr. Pascoe argued. “If you are good
at the Internet, this book is useless,” he said, adding that Mr. Pascoe simply
should not have bought it. But, Mr. Parker said, there are people who aren’t
Internet savvy who have found these guides useful." <<<<

Now, computers generating customised content for individuals may well be the
future of knowledge transfer. So I think development in this area is exciting,
and this guy is obviously way smarter than me if he can write books that seem
like they're written by a human. But I don't think it should be commercialized
before it actually adds value.

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breck
At first my general sentiment was the same as yours. But then I realized that
some people may want these products, even though I would never pay for one.

I think most of us on this site turn to the Internet first when we want to
learn more about a topic. If you put yourself in the shoes of someone who
isn't skilled at finding information online, or maybe just prefers reading
material in book form, I think that these types of products may fill that kind
of niche. Also, though I would never pay for one, if I were someday in an
offline setting and the only reading materials were a National Enquirer, a
romance novel, or one of these computer generated books, I'd probably read the
latter.

I also agree with you that even if these products aren't that interesting, the
technology is pretty cool and probably will create cool stuff in the future.

Finally, I haven't read one yet. This may give rise to the saying-"Don't judge
a book by its computer." (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

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smhinsey
> But then I realized that some people may want these products, even though I
> would never pay for one.

I feel the same way. This is essentially in the same category as products like
those Computer Professor cd-roms that will "teach people ebay" or basic Excel
skills or whatever. Not for me at all, but I totally get it.

That's not to say I appreciate what this guy is doing. If he's selling "how to
research this topic on the internet" he ought to be up front and put that in
the title or at least display it prominently.

~~~
Maro
This is basically the same as spamming people's physical or electronic inbox
with junk mail. Only this guy is spamming Amazon. Just because there are some
people who click/buy the junk does not mean it's OK. In the article, the guy
did not cite one satisfied customer..

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nickb
If you bought one of these books, would you feel ripped off? I would.

