Liberty Media + Barnes & Noble?

Breaking: Liberty Media Offers Nearly $1 Billion For Barnes & Noble

My head spins.

John Malone made his name with cable TV. In a very big way.

What he’s up to these days is so labyrinthine that I’m having trouble parsing all this. (That wikipedia entry might also have some errors, by the way, so parse carefully.)

This could be seen as either an investment in digital, an indication that he knows Barnes & Noble has a huge announcement next week, or something I can’t even think of this close to sleep time.

Everyone will be buzzing about this. Analysts will jump in with their spin.

Let me say right now that I don’t think he would be doing this if Barnes & Noble intended to remain as a domestic eBook player. That market is just too small.

This also makes me wonder now if Amazon will jump in to buy Borders.

How Apple Thinks

iCloud – Conjecture, Magic, and A Fools Hope

If you ever want to figure out what Apple is going to do in any case, look for these things…

1) What is the easiest to explain to anyone and everyone (Hi, Mom!)?

2) What is the simplest way to achieve the goal with the resources they already have?

3) What directly feeds the bottom line which is to sell more Apple stuff?

All of that comes under the heading of Occam’s Razor.

Which you could explain to Mom as being the easiest thing to do.

NY Public Libraries Thrown Under Bus By City Council

Via email:

May 19, 2011

Dear Mr. Cane,

Thank you for writing to me on behalf of our City’s libraries.

As you may know, this past month Mayor Bloomberg released his executive budget proposal.

While we are encouraged by the Mayor’s commitment to restore funding for 16,000 childcare slots, we’re disappointed that, after making a joint commitment to 6-day library service in 2008, his final budget plan includes a 29 percent cut to the City’s libraries. This cut would result in most branches opening only three days a week at best.

We also remain deeply concerned about and strongly opposed to the Mayor’s plan to lay off thousands of public school teachers – a move that would be immensely damaging to our schools and to our children’s opportunities for a quality education.

HP’s Apotheker Is An Idiot

Read Léo Apotheker’s “Tough Quarter” Memo in Full

I can’t stress enough the need to set the right tone for your organizations for the second half. Travel must be limited to essential revenue generating, consulting engagements need to be pushed out at a minimum to Q4 and very likely to Q112, depending on the Flash, attrition needs to be banked, etc.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

The Blood Will Flow Like Water Into The Sewers After A Storm

(Source)

German insurer Munich Re held orgy for salesmen

According to Handelsblatt, quoting an unnamed participant, guests were able to take the women to four-poster beds at the spa “and do whatever they liked”.

“After each such encounter the women were stamped on the lower arm in order to keep track of how often each woman was frequented,” the paper quoted the man as saying.

Previously here:

The Wrath Of God Is Coming

The Wrath Of God Is Coming

And no, I don’t mean that stupid “Saturday is The Rapture” bullshit.

I’m talking about a national — and international — rage that will set new records.

Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists

When asked if this is an end of the world scenario, the hedge-fund manager replied, “It really is. I tell my fiancée this from time to time, and I’ve stopped telling her this, because it’s not the most pleasant thought.’

WordPress Changes

WordPress has made some UI and cosmetic changes on my side of things.

It would be very nice if they would announce this will be happening instead of just dropping it on us.

I was really wondering if my eyesight was getting worse or if my brain was playing tricks on me. Most of the typefaces have been switched, for one thing. And some UI elements are no longer where I expect them to be. They’ve moved.

And I’m not keen on one change: The pervasive New Post button is gone.

Once again, someone out there needs a beating,

Update: I’ve since noticed that everything is bundled under a new “Add” drop-down menu in the top bar. I still think someone needs a beating, though.

CBS: Person Of Interest

I found out about this from the Omnimystery blog.

Stupidly, CBS wants people to log in with a social ID to see the preview trailer.

Smartly, they also put that trailer up on YouTube. See it after the break.

webOS Is Continuous, iOS Is Interruptive

webOS vs. iOS: Fluidity

After spending just a week with webOS, I am astounded at how much more fluid it is than iOS. Not just with regard to notifications, where webOS’s have been heavily praised and iOS’s heavily derided, but also when it comes to the ease of navigating the OS, switching apps and performing tasks quickly.

Yes.

Sometimes I sit here, tablet-less, and imagine using either an iPad or an HP TouchPad. (I have, in fact, used an iPad many times in an Apple Store and have had prior nano fondles on the Palm Pre and Pixi, by the way, so this isn’t entirely fanciful.)

While the iPad wins due to the number of astounding apps, the overall smoothless of webOS is how I actually work and want to work. iPad is one thing at a time, really, just like my LifeDrive. webOS is more like a correctly touch-enabled desktop, permitting more than one activity at a time.

The writer of that post is going to be disappointed, however, should he ever buy an HP TouchPad. It lacks the Gesture Area he praises.

Previously here:

HP TouchPad: Slide. Shuffle. Stack. Share.

Kobo Books: Platform Diversity Succeeds

In this post, I stated my doubt that Amazon would have reached such a milestone without being on other platforms and devices.

And now, via email, a press release from Kobo Books touting the number of iOS App Store downloads for their latest version:

KOBO #1 RATED eREADING APP ON iTUNES APP STORE

In the last 7 days:

Nearly 750,000 users have downloaded the app, a 20% jump from version 4.3

I doubt that Borders, Kobo Books, and Indigo/Chapters have managed to sell that many hardware Kobo Reader devices in North America.