January 16th, 2010
A fine blog post from Joe Esposito that I wish I’d written…a small excerpt: Empires, by definition, begin their decline at their peak. Today Amazon bestrides the publishing world like Caesar, and it may seem far-fetched to think of this company slipping from its dominant position. There is some doubt, however, that Amazon can continue…
January 16th, 2010
The Publishers Information Bureau has released its tally for 2009 (based on 250 members) and U.S. magazine ad sales were off by 18.1% last year while the total number of advertising pages dropped 25.6% compared to 2008. BusinessWeek points out that the revenue decrease is “more than twice as steep as a year earlier…The drop…
January 10th, 2010
It is the bane of the current eBook mania that I must, as your humble servant, continue to give this subject far more coverage than I would like to. At the Las Vegas (“City of Disappointment and Personal Bankruptcy”) CES (Consumer Electronics Show) which ended today, there were a slew of new eBook reader introductions….
January 7th, 2010
Above is the headline in a tiny article in today’s New York Times. I reference it because it states what I believe to be true: “Stuck between the still-evolving smartphone and the emerging tablet computer, the netbook computer would seem to be doomed.” It’s not so much that I necesarily feel that the NetBook is doomed,…
January 5th, 2010
OK, I’m obsessed. I just checked and I’ve written over 30 blog entries in the last few years about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, for what I consider empty, meaningless hype around the Kindle and eBooks generally. Where is Peter Finch’s Howard Beale when we need him: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take…