Now, from the same source, we have another sort of enterprise entirely. This is Contentville, a new Web site—launched July 5—which aims to collect almost every kind of printed material ... and offer it for sale. Want to buy a dissertation? Browse through Contentville's collection. How about a subscription to Dog World? No problem. And if you'd like to buy a copy of Who Moved My Cheese?, why, Contentville can provide that as well.

There are some rather large conceptual problems here. Let's start with the name—Salon's Sean Elder may regard "Contentville" as "one of the cooler Web site names" he's heard; we think it's horrendous. Why? Because it couples the vacuous "content"—i.e., virtually anything, in any form or medium, that can be consumed by an "end-user" somewhere—with the cartoonish "ville," thus relegating the novel, poetry and the written word in general to a carnival tent of brightly colored information. There is little discriminating taste guiding this enterprise, despite Mr. Brill's assertions to the contrary.

(Editor's Note: perhaps predictably, Contentville has not survived.)

The site's leveling approach to "content" also raises the issue of its business plan: if Contentville plans to sell virtually everything in print (audio and video seem to be ruled out for now), then what will distinguish it from sites like Amazon.com? The fact that it sells dissertations alongside books? You could argue that Amazon is equally undiscriminating in the vast number of titles it sells, but we would disagree—Amazon built its reputation, initially, on a strong backlist ("Earth's Biggest Bookstore") and on a site which radiated respect for books as books. Discounts and strong customer service helped too, of course, but the company became a household word on the basis of its book operations; it did not expand into other categories until much later. Contentville begins life as a bazaar.

Yes, the site is working with independent booksellers, and that's a plus—perhaps some discriminating intelligence will eventually peep through. All in all, though, this is an inauspicious debut.

(Reviewed July 20, 2000)