There are lots of big significant kindle news items today -
- Stephen Windwalker (had predicted it too) found evidence to show that on Amazon.com the kindle edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is outselling the hardcover. The news is on TechMeme’s front page and lots of main stream blogs are jumping in to assure us that it’s impossible that this is happening and it can’t last.
- The Lost Symbol got pirated (15 minutes after release to be exact) and Mike Cane points out that it is the ePub version that has been pirated. Makes me wonder – if a Kindle Edition were cracked, would Amazon be able to tell whose version was pirated?
- Taiwan Economic News reports a Feb 2010 Apple eReader release date. It says that some Taiwanese suppliers will start supplying Apple eReader parts starting December 2009 -
The tablet PC features a 9.6-inch screen, finger-touch function and built-in HSPDA (high speed download packet access) module.
It adopts a P.A. SEMI processor chip and long lasting battery pack, selling for between US$799 and US$999.
- Jeff Jarvis discusses a really interesting new news model at the Guardian. This in particular caught my eye -
The most startling and hopeful number we found is this: some hyperlocal bloggers, serving markets of about 50,000 people, are bringing in up to $200,000 a year in advertising.
It’d be interesting to know exactly what percentage of hyperlocal blogs make that much – if it’s just 2-5% then it might not be a scalable model.
All Not Quiet on the Google Front
- Google acquires ReCaptcha which uses captchas to make sure real people, and not bots, are signing up and posting etc.
Google will use ReCaptcha to basically let people who are registering, commenting, etc. help them interpret scanned text.
Basically, its having hundreds of millions of people help Google with their book scanning project.
- There are rumors that Google is trying to buy BrightCove for $600-$700 million. Given that BrightCove is the #1 commercial video service for professional content creators it would allow Google to control both user generated video distribution and professional video content distribution.
- Bing.com increased its share to 10.7% of the share market in August 2009 according to Nielsen. It’s interesting to think that while Google is focusing hard on news and ebooks, it’s leaving itself vulnerable on other fronts.
The Bing search gains are really scary if you’re Google. They’re good for all the companies that Google has recently picked fights with, especially Amazon.
Filed under: news Tagged: | amazon kindle news
