Bye-bye Borders: the Kindle finally comes to AustraliaAmazon’s heavily-hyped e-reader, the Kindle, has finally released an international version and will be available in Australia this month. Why would you want one? Imagine buying, downloading and reading a new-release book, without getting out of bed. Exactly.
Amazon
Online critics are secret softies
The internet is often seen as an open forum for hyper-critical and nasty opinions, but it turns out that online critics are all bark and no bite: the average rating on sites like YouTube is 4.3 stars out of 5, and overly gushy appraisals abound.
The rise and rise of Amazon.com
Online retailer Amazon.com has long been the go-to site for cheap books, but the company has now sprawled into just about every product and market imaginable — and smaller stores, both real and virtual, just can’t compete. But is it a win for consumers or a loss for the free market?
The world’s most valuable brands
Interbrand has released its annual report [PDF] on the world’s most valuable brands. Coke came in at number one for the ninth time running, while Google and Amazon have shot up the list.
Where $1000 buys … less than $1000
Vanity Fair charts what would have happened to a person’s $US1,000 if they’d invested it in new establishment businesses from Amazon to Apple at the height of the market, October 2007.
Publisher: e-readers will kill books
CEO of French publishing group Hachette Livre, Arnaud Nourry, says digital books could kill off the market for print editions, with retailers selling electronic titles at a loss to keep prices so low, hardback books can’t compete.
How Google won the book war
Google now hosts a virtual library of millions of entire books, as well as blurbs and excerpts, angering publishers and authors (who aren’t getting royalties), and Microsoft and Amazon (who didn’t think of it first). How did they get away with it? Scan first, ask questions later.
Sony unveils its Kindle killer
Sony has unveiled its new e-reader, hoping to regain back some of the market from Amazon’s Kindle. It costs more, but has a touch screen and supports a more open book format. Yet Apple’s mythical iTablet — which hasn’t been made yet — is still being touted as the real potential threat. Poor Sony.
Reading by Kindle light
Will Amazon’s Kindle — and other e-readers of its ilk — spell the death of books and newspapers? WH Chong weighs in.
Australian newspapers reject Amazon’s Kindle
Tens of thousands of Americans now read their news via Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, but as Australian newspaper publishers gear up to deliver their content digitally, both Fairfax and News say they’re looking at other brands and models, with Sony and Apple;s products now more likely contenders.
Amazon: can’t see the forest for the cut trees
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is occurring at an astonishing rate, with four times more trees chopped down in June than in May.
Charting Amazon’s acquisitions
With news that online retail giant Amazon has bought out the slightly-less-giant online retailer Zappos for $920m, Meet the Boss have drawn up a handy chart tracking their ongoing global domination.
Doubleplusungood: Amazon goes Orwellian on e-readers
Amazon has been deleting e-books directly from Kindle e-readers, with hundreds of Kindle owners making the bitterly ironic discovery that their paid-for copies of 1984 and Animal Farm had disappeared. At least they experienced a good taste of the plot…
Pirated e-books: publishers only have themselves to blame
Book publishers are putting the pressure on Amazon to jack up the prices on their e-book titles, but once they stop being a bargain, it will only be a matter of time before people start sharing them illegally like mp3s, says Jack Shafer
Why I use Amazon: one reader’s story
With all this fuss about parallel importation and the death of the local book industry, I’m wondering if the cat isn’t out of the bag and halfway onto the neighbour’s roof already, writes Elizabeth Farrelly, Amazon user.
Rakuten: the biggest e-commerce site you’ve never heard of
In Japan, online shopping site Amazon is a small player — the big name is a local site called Rakuten. With plans to go global, can they knock Amazon from pole position in the West, too?
This book was brought to you by…
Many years ago, I puzzled over why books didn’t have ads, says Joshua Gans. Now Amazon is chipping away at harnessing their ad potential.
Cattle trader’s beef with Amazon deforestation
The world’s fourth largest cattle beef trader, Mafrig, have put a moratorium on buying cattle raised in newly deforested areas in the Amazon.
Peru congress admits: mining Amazon not the best idea
Last year, the Peruvian Congress enacted two laws that opened the Amazon up for mining, logging and oil exploration, action which saw bloody confrontations between authorities and indigenous locals. Yesterday, the Peruvian government admitted it was wrong and revoked the laws.
The week in geek: Amazon fails the Twitter test
Amazon suffered PR carnage when they failed to adequately respond to the mysterious disappearance of gay and lesbian books from their sales lists. Why weren’t they following Twitter?
#amazonfail: the book giant begins to rebuild its image
Amazon have labelled their cataloguing cock-up on the weekend as “embarrassing and ham-fisted”. We look at what the pundits are saying. Crikey intern Eloise Keating writes.
#amazonfail: With book monopolies like these, no-one is safe
On Easter Sunday, weird things happened at uberbookseller Amazon, when the site suddenly reclassified certain titles as containing “adult” content.
Reality check: Election? What election?
The election hardly features in the most read lists of the 10 newspaper web sites we are monitoring during the campaign, writes Richard Farmer.
Terror redefined: Osama Bin Laden quotes The Housemartins
We know that Osama Bin Laden has been wont to spice up his various broadcasts with references to Western writers, designed it seems to confuse a US public whose historical memory extends back as far as the Cola wars. But is the bearded one now getting into 80s pop? Guy Rundle investigates.
