Most avid readers would readily admit to having an obsessive side. A tech startup, Small Demons, aims to appeal to, nay manipulate, those literary obsessions, and the idea behind it is so simple and brilliant you can’t help but marvel that it’s never been done…
In Argentina, a new and bizarre piece of red tape means that imported books and magazines are being held at customs at Ezeiza airport, some 25 miles outside of Buenos Aires. Rather than receive their reading material through the letterbox as intended, readers of foreign…
An indie publisher has added his voice to the growing number of public opponents of Amazon. In his article ‘Amazon’s Assault on Intellectual Freedom’, Bryce Milligan of Wings Press in San Antonio, Texas, calls the stand-off between IPG and Amazon an ‘undeclared war’. He continues:…
We’ve noted many times that Google‘s commitment to selling ebooks has been shaky at best. After launching its ebookstore with great ballyhoo, it then walked away from the program just weeks later … then came back … then walked away again … then said no…
In one of the most transparent fibs of the year, and amidst a wash of bad publicity, Google announced yesterday that it hadn’t meant to kick numerous indie booksellers out of its Google eBook affiliates program, it meant to — um, well, they didn’t say.…
Late last week came the news that Google was closing out an undisclosed number of its eBookstore affiliate partners. This is perhaps the beginning of the final chapter in the long and underwhelming tale of the Google eBookstore venture. It is a tale that would be…
… or is it? Google has developed an algorithm that judges comments left on YouTube videos, and through it they claim to have found the funniest video on the internet. And here it is. Side-splitting, huh? The algorithm was based on recurring words/phrases/nonsense left in…
In a surprising turnaround, in Virginia, “A bill to force online retailers such as Amazon to collect the same sales taxes that mall discount stores and corner bookstores must assess from their customers won unanimous support Tuesday from the Senate Finance Committee,” reports an Associated Press wire…
But for how much? A little over a year ago LeVar Burton announced that he wanted to reboot the Reading Rainbow franchise with a new company and approach. Per this FishBowlLA report from September of last year Burton seems to have got his druthers: Fifteen months after…
Powell’s Books has long enjoyed a unique place on the internet. Being both an indie and a business large enough to run its own affiliate program, Powell’s has been the anti-Amazon/Barnes & Noble for the conscientious online book buyer. Bloggers, too, that want to avoid…
