I’ve been working for a while on some significant changes to the website. The first thing you’ll notice is that the old template has been replaced with a much cleaner (and I think nicer looking) page. But the changes go much deeper than just a new template. I’ve completely reworked how most of the back-end systems work. The new design should allow for much greater flexibility and scalability. I’ll be able to add new websites quickly, and I’ll have the ability to work on some new tools for higher-volume users. The site should also load faster throughout. Every page should load quicker due to some HTML and CSS changes. I’ve also reconfigured some server settings to better take advantage of browser caching. The actual price comparison page should finish quicker as well. I’m using some different technology to make all of those lookups happen simultaneously.
A lot of people have been asking for the best way to package a book, so here are some tips that I thought would be helpful.
The following sites were the most popular in January 2010 according to the number of visitors sent from BookScouter. This is a good indication of which websites offered the highest prices during the month.
I’m happy to announce, that after much work, the BookScouter iPhone App is available in the App Store. This allows you access to the full power of the BookScouter pricing comparisons on your iPhone.
Used text books are good for the planet, right? Well that statement seems fairly easy to defend, but when you get down to the hard facts, it really becomes an interesting topic. When proving this hypothesis, the first question I wanted to answer was, “How many books come from one tree?” I soon realized this was not an easy question to answer because books and trees come in all different shapes and sizes. Determined not to give up on my quest for the tree book ratio, I dug deeper for some type of quantitative data to calculate how many average-sized books come from the average-sized tree. Eventually I stumbled across some interesting information. It turns out that most trees are not used for paper. In fact, only the unwanted parts are sent to make paper. The majority of paper is made from recycled materials.
I’m about to release the iPhone app and realized that I need a logo to use as the icon. I’ve started a logo design contest at 99designs.com. View the designs here
If you are creative, feel free to submit a design. Otherwise, let me know if one of the logos really stands out to you.