Looks like they’re going to try: [A] U.S. patent that Amazon Technologies in Reno, Nev., received last week indicates that the mega-retailer has its sights on digital resale, including used e-books and audio downloads. According to the abstract, Amazon will be able to create a secondary market for used digital objects purchased from an original … Continue reading Can Amazon Resell An Ebook?
Over the weekend, Hairpin editors Nicole Cliffe and Edith Zimmerman debated the merits of the Amazon Affiliate program, where sites get a cut of the money spent at Amazon when a reader follows a link from their site. The Hairpin makes “between $140 (most recently) and $1,100 (May 2012) a month, but it usually hovers around $300.” … Continue reading Should Every Book Link To Amazon?
Now that the online shopping behemoth has been adopting a locally-based business model, it has reversed positions to join Walmart and other brick-and-mortar chains in pushing for Internet-wide sales tax collection:
[T]he writing is on the wall for Amazon. Plainly, its helping itself by making sure its competitors have to pay tax too. A representative of Amazon.com urged Congress to enact the Marketplace Fairness Act. The bill, S. 1832, would require online retailers who exceed a revenue threshold to collect and remit state sales tax on online purchases in all states. The Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing doesn’t mean passage is a certainty. Still, consider that the Senate bill has 240 supporters including Best Buy, Target and Walmart, not to mention Amazon. But eBay objects to the small-business exemption which maxes out at $500,000 in gross annual sales.
Another bill, H.R. 3179, would also "replace the physical-presence rule with a requirement that state and local governments simplify their tax policies if they want to collect sales taxes from out-of-state retailers". There's an interesting debate over whether this constitutes a new tax or not:
The Internet shopping behemoth is moving in next door: Amazon has a new game. Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon’s new goal is to get … Continue reading Your Neighborhood Amazon
An example of Greg Asner's efforts to map rainforests using specialized equipment mounted on a plane: Ed Yong explains the project's purpose: Using the technology he's developed, Asner is mapping the shape and size of the trees, down to individual branches, from two kilometres above. He can measure the carbon stored in trunks, leaves and soil. He … Continue reading Mapping The Amazon To Save It
Richard Russo took to the NYT to encourage more shopping at local bookstores. Farhad Manjoo rejects Russo's logic, noting that independent bookstores charge twice as much as Amazon:
After all, if you’re spending extra on books at your local indie, you’ve got less money to spend on everything else—including on authentically local cultural experiences. With the money you saved by buying books at Amazon, you could have gone to see a few productions at your local theater company, visited your city’s museum, purchased some locally crafted furniture, or spent more money at your farmers’ market. Each of these is a cultural experience that’s created in your community. Buying Steve Jobs at a store down the street isn’t.
But say you don’t care about local cultural experiences. Say you just care about books. Well, then it’s easy: The lower the price, the more books people will buy, and the more books people buy, the more they’ll read.
D. G. Myers applauds:
Adam Penenberg documents ten of the best.
Just check out the movers and shakers on Amazon's UK site in the sports section. The purchase of regular wooden baseball bats is up 3,263 percent in the last day. I don't think baseball has suddenly had a boom in Britain. Top of the list: the Rucanor aluminum version, up 6,500 percent. 7 of the … Continue reading Amazon And The London Riots
Tags Customers Associate with This Product (What’s this?) Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people. Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below. unfit for office(86) quitter(82) narcissistic personality disorder(76) liar(72) sociopath(64) grifter(58) bad mother(36) scammer(26) pathological liar(25) brain dead(10) … Continue reading Guess Which Book On Amazon?
Dave Weigel reads Newt’s entire Amazonian oeuvre:
