WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
I was away from home last week end, and no, I wasn't dodging turtles at JFK airport (see story in Scanner section). I was in Brussels, where I'd intended to take the time to write last week's Winding Down. Unfortunately, Brussels is not exactly conducive to penning missives, so last week was a miss. Apologies to everyone.
To make up for it, I thought I'd take a more analytic look than usual at Amazon, now that its Kindle has been around for a while...
Analysis: Amazon - One Kindle to Rule them All
Well, what a surprise. The Amazon Kindle Store is choked up with rubbish auto-generated books created by lifting articles from the web (usually things other people have written) stitching them together as a Kindle book, and then flogging the resulting digital tome to the unwary. I've mentioned this before, but apparently it's getting much worse, and Amazon don't seem inclined to do anything about, except encouraging it by paying over the money for the 'books' so generated.
In fact it's now getting so bad that you can now buy software packages that automate the process to the extent of producing anything up to 20 of these 'books' a day! My advice? Stay clear of the Kindle Store. it sucks.
Actually, there's more to it than that. The manager of the computer section of a large UK chain of academic bookshops explained to me a year or two ago that Amazon were routinely selling books for less than he could buy them wholesale from the publisher. Having driven a large number of bricks and mortar retailers out of business, Amazon now seem to be engaged in a massive destocking exercise. To give you some idea of the scale, I usually have a wish list on Amazon of several hundred books and CDs - I didn't realize it was so many until I just looked - and over the past few months Amazon have ceased to sell something like 20% of those titles. Most of them are still available from Amazon partners, but, of course, they're much more expensive, because you have to pay postage on them.
That in itself would be interesting, but take a look at the URL (below) for William Rosen's book 'Justinian's Flea'. I'd had this book on my list for a while, and it is one of the books that Amazon have suddenly stopped selling in paperback. It's still available in hardback from Amazon, and in a Kindle version. But look at the pricing - the Kindle version is 25% more expensive than the paperback version bought new from an Amazon partner. Fascinating, isn't it. There are virtually no production costs associated with producing a Kindle edition - electrons are remarkably cheap in the quantities used - and yet the Kindle edition costs more - quite a lot more. While this isn't universal, if you look through the Amazon Store, you will find that on average Kindle versions of books cost nearly as much as their paper counterparts. Last time I looked into buying a Kindle I figured out that I would have to buy over 100 reasonably expensive books to break even!
So what's it all about? Clearly Amazon have already established a massive dominance over the retail book trade. But the retail trade is only part of the equation. The full cycle is author->publisher->retailer. Amazon obviously consider they are, to all intents and purposes, at the author->publisher->Amazon stage, and are ready to move further up the chain. Like anyone in the book trade, Amazon are aware that the real money in books is made not by the authors or bookshops, but by the publishers, and that's what they really want to break into. The ideal cycle for them is author->Amazon->Amazon.
Kindle is, of course an essential part of this strategy. If they can get the publisher's share of the loot then they can give a small portion of it to the suitably grateful authors and keep the lion's share for themselves. I leave it to readers to figure out just how Amazon are likely to adjust the split between themselves and the authors when they are the only 'publisher' left.
So, is this likely to happen? Possibly, though it will take some time to reduce the publishers to the level to which the retailers have sunk. The publishers are bigger and have more resources than even high street bookshop chains, let alone small independents. Also, though many writers don't like their publishers, they are not unaware of the ultimate cost of Amazon dominance in the publishing market. I suspect that as the publishers' stars fade then we will possibly see the rise of author co-operative ventures. After all, the web is out there and available to everyone who wants to use it for a darn sight less than it costs to publish a paper book!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justinians-Flea-Plague-Empire-Europe/dp/0224073699/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/17/kindle_spam/
Shorts:
Most of you have probably seen the news about the launch of massive numbers of new and expensive Internet domains, available to all comers at a mere $185,000 a pop. Don't be fooled, this is little but a method for the domain industry to enrich themselves at the expense of the users. There's a good piece on the implications on Lauren Weinstein's blog, take a look and see what we are in for in the future. I particularly liked the video purporting to be of an 'Internet Censorship Secret Planning Meeting'.
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000871.html
The mobile business is lucrative, and likely to become even more so in the near future, something which has provoked a rash of legal actions on cruddy patents issued by the US patent office (not that I wish to imply that patent laws anywhere else are any better). The latest legal action is Microsoft suing Motorola, so I thought I'd draw your attention to a chart put together by the UK's Guardian newspaper. Take a look - if you needed evidence that the patent laws are broken, you've only got to look at this mess to see that there are serious structural failings.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-motorola-android-patent-lawsuit
Homework:
Hi tech is, of course, not just about computers and networking, and to prove it here is a most interesting breakthrough in the field of gasoline engines. It's a new design of car engine that does away completely with the transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, and cooling systems. It's called the Wave Disk Generator, and it uses 60% of the fuel for propulsion, as opposed to 15% in normal engines. Using it could reduce a car's weight by 1,000 pounds, and pollution by 90%. The generator produces electricity which is fed directly to motors driving the wheels, obviating the need to install a heavy transmission.
Normally I would take a report like this with a pinch of salt, but this seems to be sound engineering, it's produced by Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory, and being backed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency to the tune of US$2.5 million. Hopefully it won't go the way of cold fusion.
http://news.discovery.com/autos/new-car-engine-sends-shockwaves-through-auto-industry-110405.html
Here's a trivia question for those of you specializing in pub quizzes. How old is the world's oldest functioning light bulb? And for a bonus point, where is it located? Any one using Google will immediately be disqualified...
Give up? The answer is 110 years old - it was switched on in 1901 - and has been on more or less continuously ever since! It's in a fire station in Livermore, California. The locals are, understandably proud of it, and since it's unique, it's extremely difficult to investigate why it's lasted so long, without doing things to it that would wreck it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/technology-video/8576593/Oldest-light-bulb-still-burning-after-110-years.html
Geek Toys:
OK, guys. Don't try out this one in the house. It's the ultimate in flamethrower trombones. With a 21 foot range fireball and a concussion wave that can be felt 150 feet away this is not for the faint of heart. It reminds me of the Xmas I was in hospital with a broken leg. The local Salvation Army brass band decided to play 'Onward Christian Soldiers' at the bottom of my bed to cheer me up as I came out of the general anesthetic...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76J6k9dfc4Y&feature=player_embedded
Scanner:
JFK Turtle Update: Pilots patiently wait for turtles to pass
http://gothamist.com/2011/06/30/jfk_turtle_update_pilots_patiently.php
KMI SoftStep: A USB-powered foot controller for your PC
http://hothardware.com/News/KMI-SoftStep-A-USBPowered-Foot-Controller-For-Your-PC/
Chrome browser passes 20% of the global market in June
http://gs.statcounter.com/press/chrome-breaks-20-perc-globally-in-june
Interstate 71/75 sign warns of zombies
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20110623/NEWS0103/306230041/
Facebook sees big traffic drops in US and Canada as it nears 700 million users worldwide
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-traffic-drops-in-us-and-canada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
3 July, 2011
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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