Amazon (AMZN) racked up its second acquisition of the month today, announcing the purchase of Shelfari, a social-networking site for bibliophiles. This just three weeks after the retailer acquired AbeBooks, an online marketplace for rare books that happens to hold an equity stake in Shelfari’s chief rival, LibraryThing. Which makes for an awkward situation, given the bad blood between the two. LibraryThing has been a vocal critic of Shelfari, denouncing it as a “bad actor” that’s built its business through astroturfing and spam. But now that bad actor is owned by one of LibraryThing’s own investors. “LibraryThing is clearly worried about today’s acquisition,” Richard MacManus writes over at ReadWriteWeb. “… Founder and lead developer of LibraryThing Tim Spalding notes that “Amazon can make Shelfari the choice of casual book lovers who see a button on Amazon.com and click on it.” LibraryThing hopes to compete with this by being a superior service. However it’s very difficult to compete against Amazon’s bulk.”
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size. 11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
