Behold “The Amazon Effect”∞
Last time on “Rupert Murdoch Is A Greedy Motherfucker,” our titular antagonist was trying to get Microsoft to pay him to remove his News Corp sites from Google’s search index. Now he’s trying to get his e-books for the Kindle listed at more than Amazon’s price of $10.
So he sees that Amazon caved to Macmillan when they tried to get Amazon to sell their books for more than $14.99, and he wants to get in on it. Why? He doesn’t have to worry about (or pay for) manufacturing or distributing the books, and he gets 70% of the revenue on each book sold—which is pretty much 100% profit, for anyone doing the math.
I’m going to put this on the record: Rupert Murdoch is the antithesis of the progressive digital movement. His sole aim seems to be to hinder advances in technology and culture in order to preserve the dying old models of business that no longer apply in the Internet age.
Alex: An Android-Powered, Dual-Screen Reader∞
If it weren’t for the word “Alex” in the title, you’d think the article was referring to the Nook. Actually, it’s an ebook reader by a company called SpringDesign.
The article also mentions a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble by SpringDesign for taking the idea for the Nook from them.
Either way, if you’ve ever played around with a Nook, you know it’s an unintuitive, slow, horrible awful creature. Let’s hope the Alex works a bit better.
