Monthly Archives: March 2008

In forcing on-demand publishers to use Book Surge, is Amazon replaying the 1998 Barnes & Noble, Ingram deal?

Later on Friday, O’Reilly’s Andrew Savikas <a href=”http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/amazon-gets-demanding-with-print-on-demand-publishers.html”>wrote a detailed post explaining the kinds of lock-in</a> Amazon.com is attempting with this move.</p> <p>And yes, there is a Nashville angle to this story as one of the on-demand printing services that is being targeted by this move is Ingram Industries subsidiary <a href=”http://www.lightningsource.com/”>LIghtning Source</a>. </p> <p>Quote from WSJ.com:</p> <blockquote><p><i>”Amazon’s decision means that any of those publishers who want their books sold on the giant Web site will have to use BookSurge. … The transaction, which was blasted by independent booksellers because it merged the largest wholesaler with the largest retailer of books, was seen as a bold grab by Barnes & Noble to vertically integrate a competition-stiffling segment of the book distribution channel.</p> <p>I say ironic, because at the time, Jeff Bezos was one of the most outspoken opponents of the B&N, Ingram deal — one of the few times he and independent booksellers agreed on much.

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Audio Post: Interview with Patrick Ruffini on lessons (so far) from 2008 presidential campaign online strategies

[This is also being posted at Hammock Inc.'s Custom Media Craft weblog.] It’s been a while since I’ve made an “audio post” to a blog (I’m more “video” these days). However, some recent blog posts and Twitter comments by online … Continue reading

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links for 2008-03-31

This is my Beddian Year | The New Yorker Were you born in 1954? Then this will be your Beddian year, the year in which your age = the last two digits of the year in which you were born. … Continue reading

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links for 2008-03-30

Shareaholic (a Firefox add-on extension) This is pretty helpful as it consolidates about 4 or 5 bookmarklets I already use. (Thanks, Steve Garfield) (tags: firefox socialmedia socialbookmarking twitter digg delicious del.icio.us bookmarking productivity tagging) Related posts: rexblog nano links for … Continue reading

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April Fools Day is not for amateurs

I love The Onion. They have talented and very funny writers who know how to create news parodies that are biting and clever — in other words, not stupid or cruel. For some reason, during several days surrounding April 1, … Continue reading

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