April 9th, 2012
Leaving Facebook
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?
The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
Blog
April 5th, 2012
Ebook Readership Explodes; Amazon Strengthens Attack on Public Libraries
It’s been a big day for ebook news.
March 30th, 2012
How Would You Save Barnes & Noble?
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
Stripping Covers off The Hunger Games
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.
March 25th, 2012
How Billionaires Help Connect the Dots
I assume that on October 2, 2005 Anthony Federico really did die “peacefully at home” of a heart attack before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could lay charges against him. He was only 46 years old.