April 11th, 2012
A lot of “ink” will be spilled in the days and weeks ahead about the Department of Justice lawsuit against the large New York-based publishers. Too much of the ink will be focused on pricing, authors, Amazon and other abstractions.
April 9th, 2012
Dark clouds formed in happy valley today. The two biggest? Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars and Microsoft bought 800 patents from AOL for a billion plus. Two billion dollars spent. For what?
April 5th, 2012
It’s been a big day for ebook news.
March 30th, 2012
What is it about the anonymity of the web that turns us instantly into triumphalist armchair critics? Best Buy today announced another disappointing quarter and we-who-know-all proclaim that the company is doomed, as are all retailers, and Amazon will be the only company left on the planet.
March 25th, 2012
Destroying paperbacks instead of recirculating them is a curious and wasteful vestige of the days when most pocket books were sold on newsstands alongside magazines. Magazines are topical – they have little resale value. Books do. But freight and logistics costs mean that pulping paperbacks is not necessarily as wasteful as it first appears.