Platform war!

Two sided markets in action: Apple/iPad vs. Amazon/Kindle

Amazon appears to be responding to the Apple threat by waging a publisher-by-publisher battle, trying to keep as many books as possible out of Apple’s hands, while preserving as much flexibility as it can to set its own prices.

But if Amazon tries to enforce its demands by removing “buy” buttons from some pages again, some believe it could harm its reputation in the eyes of customers and the publishing industry.

ONN: Collateral damage from the loss of print news?

The Onion News Network describes some of the costs to society from the loss of print newspapers:


How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

Reinventing the Book

The book is a venerable invention for sharing knowledge and entertainment. It's now being reinvented, via the kindle, other e-book readers and soon, the iPad.

Here's Penguin's vision for ebooks:

At the same time, the business models will be reinvented. Massive Bundling and Subscriptions become will be much more profitable because the marginal costs of e-books is so much lower than paper books.