Borrow, Scan, Keep

ALA, Authors Guild, 3M Weigh In on Penguin-OverDrive Dispute

Can you really believe those in the Big Six of book publishing are thinking like this in the year 2012?

Some publishers like the idea of in-library lending of ebooks as a way to recreate the “friction” of a print transaction: The patron has to physically go to the library.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Where those patrons will find the same outrageous Waiting List that they could have from the comfort of their own home!

WTF!!

So, I was thinking, if they want you to visit the library, do so!

Barnes & Noble Seeks Trademark For “Book OS”

Word Mark
BOOK OS

Goods and Services
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer operating programs, operating systems and firmware for use in connection with electronic book readers, tablet computers, handheld electronic apparatus and portable electronic apparatus, and instructional manuals, sold as a unit

Bookish: Using Amazon S3

Getting impatient over its long-delayed appearance, I decided to go look at the Page Source for Bookish.

Ignore the fact it says Source for “bookish.com/faq” — I was throwing in some URL modifiers to see if anything would pop. There is just the one page and it’s “bookish.com”.

Anyway, look what’s in the Page Source:

Click = big

Bookish is funded by three of the Big Six book publishers — Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA), and Simon & Schuster — as a way to compete against Amazon. Yet they’re still putting money into the pockets of Amazon by using its S3 storage service for the logo (WordPress, by the way, uses S3 for all of the images you see in this blog, including the one above).

Here is MailChimp, which is just the usual email list management service.

Later on in the Source, not pictured here, they’re using the Chartbeat analytics service. And the Wufoo form service.

But none of this explains anything aside from the fact that even as wannabe Amazon competitors, they’re still tied to them.