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.
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.
Take the famous ballads and duets of West Side Story, insert a dozen mentions of famous social media sites like twitter and facebook, and this is what you get.
Music videos recreated with new lyrics based on what’s actually happening in them. Daydream Believer and Total Eclipse of the Heart are particularly good.
In response to numerous e-mails, I have no idea what planet the giant alien creature is from. Judging from its enormous gills, I’d have to guess it’s from a watery planet. Reminder: please let me know if you plan to be in the office on Memorial Day so I can request HVAC for your floor.
For those of you who mock the wolf shirt beware. There is an old Navajo story about a young man who made fun of another man for wearing a wolf trio shirt. Legend has it that in his sleep, the wolves on the other man’s shirt came to life and tore his body to shreds. They never found any part of that man’s body. The Wolf is something to be respected and feared, not treated like a novelty.
