Tag: amazon
Amazon Prime to get faster deliveries with one-day shipping pledge
Trevor Mogg reported for Digital Trends that Amazon Prime to get faster deliveries with one-day shipping pledge. Amazon already offers some Prime members one-day shipping, and even a two-hour delivery service called Prime Now, but it’s only available in selected areas and covers a limited range of goods. Its long-standing two-day unlimited shipping pledge covers…
The False Tale of Amazon’s Industry-Conquering Juggernaut
Felix Salmon wrote for WIRED about the false tale of Amazon’s industry-conquering juggernaut. Still, as Bezos will readily admit, most of his investment ideas fail. Just because Amazon spends a huge amount of money on, say, trying to create a new social network, doesn’t mean it’s going to have any visible success doing so. After…
Authors and booksellers accuse Amazon of antitrust violations, demand inquiry
The New York Times reported on authors and booksellers accusing Amazon of antitrust violations, and demanding inquiry. The Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of Authors’ Representatives and Authors United said in letters and statements being sent this week to the Justice Department that “Amazon has used its dominance in ways that we…
Inside the US antitrust probe of Google
WSJ reported on the US antitrust probe of Google. In discussing one of the issues the FTC staff wanted to sue over, the report said the company illegally took content from rival websites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to improve its own websites. It cited one instance when Google copied Amazon’s sales…
How Amazon tricks you into thinking it has the lowest prices
Re/code reported on [How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices Re/code](http://recode.net/2015/01/13/how-amazon-tricks-you-into-thinking-it-always-has-the-lowest-prices/). In one example, Boomerang observed Amazon testing price reductions on a $350 Samsung TV — one of the most popular TVs on Amazon — over the six months leading up to Black Friday. Then, on Black Friday, it dropped…
The real story behind Jeff Bezo’s Fire Phone debacle
Fast Company on the real story behind Jeff Bezo’s Fire Phone debacle. Introduced with grand ambitions last summer, the Fire Phone is widely seen as a fiasco. Originally priced at $199 (with contract) and intended as an iPhone competitor, it now sells for 99 cents, and Amazon has taken a $170 million write-down largely attributable…
They laughed at the DOJ’s e-book antitrust case against Apple
Philip Elmer-DeWitt wrote for Fortune on the United States Department of Justice’s e-book antitrust case against Apple. Roger Parloff on the hearing: “Judges Jacobs and Lohier seemed quite concerned that Judge Cote had used the wrong standard, but Jacobs’s qualms clearly went much further—seeming to question the government’s judgment in ever having brought the case.…
When Amazon went to war against punctuation
Graeme Reynolds wrote about how Amazon went to war against punctuation. Apparently Amazon had received a complaint from a reader about the fact that some of the words in the book were hyphenated. And when they ran an automated spell check against the manuscript they found that over 100 words in the 90,000 word novel…
Bezos defends Amazon’s lack of profits, stance on publishers
Jennifer Saba wrote on Reuters about Jeff Bezos defending Amazon’s lack of profits and the company’s stance on publishers. His comments come a day after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its outlook on Amazon to “negative,” citing the company’s upcoming debt offering and the “lack of visibility” about how the funds would be deployed. Investors have…
Literary lions unite in protest over Amazon’s e-book tactics
The New York Times reported on literary lions uniting in protest over Amazon’s e-book tactics. “Sons of Wichita” by Daniel Schulman, a writer for Mother Jones magazine, came out in May. Amazon initially discounted the book, a well-received biography of the conservative Koch brothers, by 10 percent, according to a price-tracking service. Now it does…