Internet Culture
Amazon and Macmillan: The Pricing Bowl
1. Does anybody out there believe Macmillan wants to sell electronic books? I don't think they do.
New York Times Gets Smaller
1. So the New York Times is going ahead with a payment wall for its website. I still say this is a bad business decision. Newspapers have always made more money on advertising than on sales, and newspapers that force readers to pay for online content will significantly harm their advertising numbers without bringing in a lot of subscription revenue. The New York Times is about to get much smaller.
On The Run
I still haven't mentally returned from vacation, still haven't gotten back into the LitKicks swing. I've been running around a lot, actually, as well as working hard behind the scenes on a new software platform for the site that has so far only succeeded in breaking the Action Poetry pages (they will be back soon, I promise). More soon! Till then ... links:
Enoch Soames on Twitter, or The Devil Went Down To The British Library
Retweeting the Review: November 29 2009
Thursday Thoughts
1. This expressionist portrait of Joyce Carol Oates is one of many interpretations of modern authors by Swedish artist Carl Kohler, who died in 2006.
2. If you prefer cute to modern expressionist, here's John Pupdike on Etsy.
Drupal, Barack Obama and the Dumbest Article of the Year
It's almost November and we're starting to see the usual "Best of 2009" lists (best books, best songs, etc.), which seems strange since there's a whole lot of year left in 2009. I won't try to name a best book or movie or song of the year today. However, I have just read an article on Slate that is so bad, so incorrect and so unnecessary that I'm going to go out on a limb: "Message Error" by Chris Wilson is the dumbest article of 2009.
Les Mouches
1. A creepy publicity stunt involving flies carrying little paper advertisements at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Doesn't this make you feel bad for the flies?
