Big Data Now: Current Perspectives from O'Reilly Radar | Hacker News Reader

Big Data Now: Current Perspectives from O'Reilly Radar

shop.oreilly.com

65 pointsrkda8 comments

Man, for a free book it is very hard to buy.

First of all, I had to sign up, ok no problems. No facebook or twitter conect. But no problem, only name and email.

But to buy I have to fill all my billing adress. Its a Free book!! I not have a flag in the website that says "If free book, proceed direct from checkout to book download". It's really pain to put all my billing adress even though I'll not pay for anything.

Personally, I think its brilliant. Even though it was a bit of a hassle, I still signed up and gave them my information because I was enticed by the promotion. Now they have my information and I am more likely to buy from OReilly because I already have an account setup with them.

Eh, I felt that way too, but it's just how they fit it into the existing system, which with them being a publisher is likely some ancient behemoth. So hey, a no-cost, no-DRM, multi-format book!

It's nice though too because now it's right there along with all of my other ebook purchases, so I can re-download it easily.

To be fair, it's one click on Amazon, 2 on Bn.com, free on both sites. Chances are, you won't have to fill out anything if you've purchased from either before.

Is it some sort "Christmas came early" thing? I see whole bunch of books on Amazon for free (Kindle version):

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Now-Perspectives-ebook/dp/B00...

Look at the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section.

Some of these are free because they are public domain, like The Prince. Not sure what's up with the others. I've only had a kindle for a few days but it's been my experience so far, that if a book is free and not public domain, there is a reason: no one would ever buy it.

Check iBook Store (iTunes) and you'll get the same stuff. O'reilly has had free eBooks for a while on iTunes store.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com