It is that season again. Today is April fools day and the Internet celebrates. Here is a convenient round up of contributions from tech and economics. Google: as they do every year, Google enjoy a good prank. This year Google maps has an 8-bit mode, Gmail gets taps, Chrome gets multitasking, there's Street Roo and Sergey …
Are prices higher under an agency model than a wholesale pricing model?
[This post is wonkish. If you prefer to read such things in pdf form, this note is available here.] This is the question floating around with regard to the DOJ’s investigation into eBook pricing. There are suggestions that it will result in a move back from the agency model to the wholesale pricing model for …
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'What did you expect?': Gizmodo/Kickstarter edition
Gizmodo are apparently done with Kickstarter. Starting today, you will not see any items from Kickstarter posted on Gizmodo. Unless we are making fun of them. Or unless Kickstarter figures out a way to up the quality of the shit on its site. We are all for rampant innovation, but, at this point, Kickstarter is …
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JK Rowling blows up the eBookstore business
Well, at least for her. Today, JK Rowling finally joined the eBook party on her own Pottermore website. As I write about at the Parentonomics blog at Forbes.com today, the pricing and versioning issues are kind of mysterious. But here I want to concentrate on what all this means for eBook publishing. First, some facts. …
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The mouse on the manhole cover
[This post was originally published on HBR.org on March 26th, 2012] I recently returned from a family vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida. There, my son noticed the manhole cover. Right in the center is Mickey Mouse. On the manhole cover! Although my son noticed it, not everyone does. And that's the point. Manhole …
Encyclopedia Britannica folds its hand with class
Encyclopedia Britannica recently announced that it will cease publication of its books. This kicked up a range of sentimental reactions from those who grew up with the books. I would prefer to accentuate the positive: we are watching the end of a rather civilized economic transformation. This transformation is notable for the degree of civility …
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The Daisey Chain
Like everyone else, I downloaded and listened to This American Life's podcast about Mike Daisey, an entertainer, who had produced a show about workers at Apple suppliers in China. When I listened to it, I didn't hear anything new. These allegations had been around for some time. What I heard was This American Life giving …
Google and the 'this time it's gonna be different mentality'
[This post was published on HBR Blogs on 19 March 2012] James Whittaker left Google and wrote about it. Long story short: Google came under "new" management (which was actually really old management returning) and started focusing on its core products rather than being "all about the technology." The staff — and this is surely not …
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Kony 2012 and the demand for attention
If you haven't seen this 30 minute long video this week you are rapidly becoming a minority. The video announcing a campaign to catch Joseph Kony this year is now officially the fastest viral video of all time. It reached 100 million views in just 6 days. For such a long video, this is up …
The DOJ, publishers, Apple and eBook pricing
It looks like the DOJ is moving to follow in the EC's footsteps and investigate possible anticompetitive practices in eBook pricing. From the WSJ: The case centers on Apple's move to change the way that publishers charged for e-books as it prepared to introduce its first iPad in early 2010. Traditionally, publishers sold books to …
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Digitopoly 