The big small world
April 17th, 2006 by Bill
On the right you can see where I stick that Amazon ad. Every so often I change it up. They’re books I’ve read or am reading that I think are worthwhile. I’m working on the assumption that the few ads I place on here aren’t too annoying. Of course, over the time I’ve had them here I think managed to generate about $1.12 so there’s a strong argument for them being pointless.
Anyway … here’s what I meant to get at: I use Amazon.com, the U.S. site because the majority of people who visit my blogs are from the U.S. (It’s something like 62%.) So it makes sense to me that I provide the Amazon they would use.
The thing is, I live in Canada and what is available to me isn’t necessarily available in the U.S. and vice versa. This doesn’t happen often but it seems to happen more frequently with books than other items. Particularly books that are Canadian or British.
For example … I’ve just put up an ad for the book I’m reading now, which is very good. It’s a novel, Natural Flights of the Human Mind by Clare Morrall. But while it’s available here in Canada and, presumably, in the England, it appears it hasn’t been released yet in the U.S. Hence the ad with no image in it.
So … to the businesses and governments of the world I would like to say that while your world may be a bordered one, mine is not. I interact with people across Canada every day, across North America every day, around the world every day. The last few books I’ve read have been Canadian, American, Japanese, Pakastinian, Australian, and Italian. I’ve been watching movies that have been Indian, Japanese, American, Canadian, Italian, British, Korean. (Of course, many of these are in translation, subtitled – I’m a far cry from a linguist.)
Do I have a point? Not really. It’s more an observation. It just seems silly to me to be reading something that people I interact with don’t yet have access to and vice versa. It makes me crazy when I encounter something interesting that I have to wait on for because it’s not yet available here.
Surely I’m not alone in feeling this way.
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