My idea is to have a book rental service specializing in professional books. The service would target large companies. The pitch would be to save a bunch of money for the clients (should go well in today's cost-cutting US culture).

I haven't figured out all the details yet. It should work like NetFlix. Any new book should be available instantaneously and in any quantity. The company would pay either a monthly subscription or a small fee for each book. Books distribution and return would be tricky since you don't want to spend half of your revenue on delivery. Maybe if a company has a campus, you can drop-off and pick-up books at one central location and let inter-office mail handle the rest.

Being a computer geek, I can't resist thinking that a good information system will be a key component of such business. The system would have to accurately predict demand based on the current trends in various industries. It would also decide when a book should be taken out of rental and sold through something like half.com.

The book clubs would be major competitors to this kind of business. Some companies also have internal libraries. In both cases, at the end you are still stuck with bunch of outdated, useless books. Anybody interested in “Java 1.1 Unleashed”?