The Goodreads/Amazon story is a great example of why concentrated economic (market) power is not in the consumer’s long-run best interest. In this case, Amazon wants to protect its bundled product, the Kindle. The Kindle is to Amazon as Office or MSIE are to Microsoft, extensions of an infrastructure franchise. Over at Google, it’s two […]
In 2007, Google and YouTube broke into presidential politics by holding a “debate” in conjunction with CNN. At the time, Google had owned YouTube for less than a year. Flash forward almost five years. On Monday at 5.30 p.m. Eastern, Google+ (which is also less than a year old), is the stage for a presidential […]
My entry in the January Carnival of journalism. This month’s theme comes from Michael Rosenblum: “Can a good journalist also be a good capitalist?” Videojournalist Michael Rosenblum asserts (without evidence or explanation) that “there is an instinctive aversion to the idea of making money amongst most journalists.” There are a lot of journalists who aren’t allergic to making […]