What if Facebook is nothing more than a digital drug dealer and we’re all just junkies? As we head toward a future where technology is not just something we do, but a part of our biology, the answer to that question might take on grave importance. Read More »
Welcome to the concept of the superstack — which acts to circumvent the openness that the Internet and the digitization of content has enabled and once again lock consumers into a single platform for their content determined in part by the hardware they choose. Read More »
Is Amazon seriously launching a tech blog to compete with gadget blogs like the Verge and Gizmodo? According to a new report, yes. The funny thing is that Amazon already has a gadget blog, plus seven other blogs on topics like food and music. Read More »
Book publishers are trying hard to argue that e-books cost almost as much to produce as printed ones, and therefore prices for e-books should be higher — but the bottom line is that consumers don’t care what a publisher’s costs are, nor should they. Read More »
According to a memo obtained by The Verge, Target will stop carrying Kindles in its stores or on its website after Mother’s Day. Read More »
Microsoft”s $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble’s Nook business gives it a piece of an ebook reader also-ran. But this is far from the first time Microsoft enlisted a B list ally to attack a recalcitrant market. Read More »
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to take on Amazon and Apple. The $300 million investment in the Nook subsidiary of Barnes & Noble gives Microsoft about 17.6% ownership of this business unit and values it at about about $1.7 billion, more than … Read More »
Worldreader gives Kindles to students in sub-Saharan Africa. The nonprofit’s new report, funded by USAID, shows that access to e-readers improved primary school students’ reading skills significantly. But a lot of e-readers broke and results for older kids were mixed. Read More »
As government strives to keep up with the broadband age, the Senate held a hearing covering the future of television, but midway through I realized that the Senate has it all wrong. The future of TV isn’t found in deregulation, it’s found on the Internet. Read More »
Devices aren’t the only problem associated with the consumerization of IT. A report out from Deutsche Bank notes that the flip side of employees bringing in their own devices is IT managers and staff bringing in their own compute resources without consulting their higher ups. Read More »
Amazon opened AmazonSupply Monday, a store dedicated to the bits and pieces associated with running an office, building garage robots or a manufacturing facility. All I could think after seeing this story was, “Just wait until Amazon gets its hands on industrial-grade 3-D printers.” Read More »
Book publishers argue that Amazon is a vicious monopoly that has too much power over them and their content. But they need to realize they gave Amazon much of that power themselves when they agreed to shackle all of their books in DRM chains. Read More »
More Must Reads
Apple says it had to cut an agency-pricing deal with publishers in order to weaken Amazon’s monopolistic control over the e-book industry. But wait — didn’t Apple behave exactly the same way towards the record labels as it is accusing Amazon of behaving towards book publishers? Read More »
As the Department of Justice pursues an antitrust case over e-book prices, publishers say they need “agency pricing” to prevent Amazon from increasing its monopoly and decimating the book industry. So who should we be rooting for, the giant retailer or the giant publishing houses? Read More »
Reports suggest Amazon has paid almost no tax in the UK, despite making billions of dollars by becoming Britain’s biggest online retailer. It’s another example of how tax avoidance has become a troubling issue facing the entire continent. Read More »
As almost every other form of media from newspapers to television becomes more conversational, books have remained relatively anti-social. Author and tech blogger Clive Thompson says he is excited about a future in which e-books are more social — but is that what readers want? Read More »
Best Buy will close 50 stores, while also expanding the number of smaller concept stores where customers can go to try devices and talk to expert staff members. The shift in strategy is one that we’ll see across much of retail in the future. Read More »
Author J.K. Rowling has chosen to do a number of interesting things with the launch of the e-book versions of her Harry Potter series. While not everyone wields as much power as Rowling, there are lessons other book publishers should learn from what she is doing. Read More »
The company, which has just closed a seven-figure funding round and is aiming for expansion into the U.S., aggregates various e-tailers’ loyalty schemes into a Facebook app that also takes account of customers’ profile data Read More »
A new Rocket company has just popped up in Indonesia, offering a suspiciously similar service and look to the world’s most prominent e-tailer Read More »
The massive amount of data that is emerging from connected, digital systems, is fundamentally changing everything, from Internet search to entertainment, to disease management, to energy consumption. Here’s 10 case studies that highlight the power of big data. Read More »
The ultimate outcome of the Department of Justice’s case against Apple and five major book publishers over alleged price fixing and collusion in e-books is unknown, but it seems obvious that prices are likely to go down — and that could be a good thing for … Read More »
Apple’s decision to reject an e-book by Seth Godin because it contains hyperlinks to books in the Amazon store is just another example of how the oligopoly that controls the market for e-books is turning the landscape of reading into a walled garden. Read More »
Design shopping site Fab.com is taking a big step toward becoming the Amazon of design with the introduction of five weekly specialty shops for categories like fashion, pets and food that will more than triple the number of products Fab offers at any given time. Read More »
Amazon has been taking a beating recently for what some see as its attempt to cut in on the business of independent booksellers, and for its ongoing disruption of the e-book market via its Kindle lending library and other moves. But whether the … Read More »
Though historically secretive about Kindle sales, Amazon is finally giving a glimpse of how its e-readers and tablets are doing. The company said that for the third straight week, it has sold well over 1 million Kindle units a week and Kindle Fire sales are increasing. Read More »
By keeping e-book prices high, the Big Six book publishers are not only getting less money from their books in many cases, but they are also fuelling piracy and pushing readers away — all of which is giving Amazon even more ammunition to use against them. Read More »
While the Kindle Fire has its share of hardware and software shortcomings, a bigger concern is emerging for parents who are thinking of buying the Kindle Fire: it has almost no restrictions to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content or buying whatever they like. Read More »
Ansca Mobile, maker of the Corona cross-platform app development tool, released a new Corona SDK today that supports the Kindle Fire and Nook Color separately. Ansca says it makes sense to treat those devices as their own opportunities because they represent separate platforms with sufficient differences. Read More »
European antitrust regulators have announced the launch of a formal investigation into the relationship between Apple and five of the world’s largest publishers, in a move that could reshape the digital book market. Read More »
Amazon’s Kindle Fire has only been on the market for a few weeks but developers saying it’s providing a very significant lift in app sales because of its easy buying process. It’s giving Android tablet developers reason for a lot of optimism. Read More »
Amazon has been busy disrupting the traditional publishing market by encouraging self-publishing and signing authors to its own in-house imprint, but author Charles Stross argues that publishers themselves handed Amazon its biggest weapon in this fight: namely, the widespread use of digital-rights management locks for books. Read More »
The traditional publishing industry has been taking a beating lately from Amazon and the rise of self-publishing, but one writer says working with a publisher has a lot of benefits that self-publishing doesn’t. If publishers have any weapons against Amazon, they are on this list. Read More »
When will we stop talking about the cloud? If history is any guide, eventually the idea of the cloud as something that is separate from the web will disappear as more people get used to it — although when that will happen is anyone’s guess. Read More »
The effort to figure out the biggest online shopping day of the year is still in flux, with Thanksgiving so far seeing the peak traffic, according to Akamai. Will this year be the one where turkey day beats out Cyber Monday? Stay tuned. Read More »
Amazon did some big Black Friday business with its Kindle devices, recording a 4x increase over the previous year, the company crowed today. The numbers show that Amazon is still accelerating its Kindle business and the Kindle Fire is likely contributing to the sales growth. Read More »
In today’s crowded media marketplace, presidential candidates (and their media consultants) have an almost mind-boggling number of mediums in which to get a message across. From TV to talk radio to the printed word and all the permutations in between, there’s no doubt … Read More »
Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, widely viewed as the only real challenger to Apple’s iPad is out in the wild. Those who got the device have been putting it through the paces. Online video platform, Ooyala has taken data from its platform. Here is what Fire owners … Read More »
Forget hitting the mall. Holiday shopping is now all about lounging on your couch, missing the retail store madness, and ordering things online, And this Black Friday, the kickoff of the annual Holiday shopping frenzy, both Amazon and eBay are off to a great … Read More »
I am going to be linking to stories, stats and other random factoids over next day or so, tracking Black Friday. If you would like to share stories, just leave them in comments or share links with me on Twitter (I am @om on Twitter.) Read More »
Amazon is trying to reinvent the library by offering e-books through public libraries and through its own Netflix-style service, but publishers and authors are digging in their heels. Going electronic should theoretically make books easier to lend, but so far, it hasn’t worked out that way. Read More »
A new wave of apps aims to replace the increasingly crowded space of long-winded five-star user generated reviews (like those on Yelp and Amazon) with straightforward social recommendations. The newest entrant in this field, an iPhone app called Stamped, aims to win with simplicity. Read More »
EBay has announced it’s buying New York startup Hunch, the recommendation engine, to help improve its recommendation services. The purchase helps eBay improve its technology base, compete better with Amazon and it might also be another asset in eBay’s X.commerce platform. Read More »
Many are saying that the Kindle Fire is an example of a company finally getting an Android tablet right. But the Nook was the first tablet that was priced cheaply with a curated approach to content, and that content-first approach could big a big asset to … Read More »
The Kindle Fire isn’t just getting attention from consumers. Developer interest is on the rise, making Amazon’s new device the top Android tablet developers want to code for in North America, just a few points behind where the iPad debuted, according to a new developer … Read More »
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