Internet & Media- Page 1245

Book publishers object to Kindle's text-to-voice feature

Update at 5:30 p.m. PST: Quotes added from copyright advocate Ben Sheffner.

Was your mother a lawbreaker when she read you The Little Prince or Green Eggs and Ham?

That's the question raised Tuesday by the Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers. Paul Aitken, the group's executive director objects to the text-to-speech feature on Amazon's Kindle 2 digital-book reader. Aitken told The Wall Street Journal: "They don't have the right to read a book out loud. That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."

Wow. If a computer … Read more

Twitter may charge companies that 'tweet'

Update at 4:30 p.m. PST with an excerpt from Twitter's afternoon blog posting clarifying that it doesn't plan to charge for "existing services."

It seems that Twitter may have figured out a way to make money.

Biz Stone, co-founder of the microblogging site, told Marketing magazine that his company is considering charging companies that use the service to market their brands.

"We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them," Stone said. "We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts." … Read more

IPOs on deck, but not a tech company among them

Several young companies anticipate initial public offerings this week, but there's not a single high-tech outfit among them.

There's one green-tech company however. Changing World Technologies, a company that converts waste into oil, is one of four IPOs poised to hit Wall Street this week. Changing World is scheduled to price its IPO as early as Wednesday and could raise as much as $42 million, if it prices on the high end of its $11 to $15 per share range.

Nonetheless, while the four Wall Street prospects offer some excitement to their investors, there's little reason to … Read more

Google cancels promotion after policy violation

Google has apologized for a promotion in Japan that violated the company's own search guidelines.

"Google Japan is running several promotional activities to let people know more about our products. It turns out that using blogs on the part of the promotional activities violates Google's search guidelines, so we have ended the promotion. We would like to apologize to the people concerned and to our users, and are making an effort to make our communications more transparent in order to prevent the recurrence of such an incident," Google marketing manager Koji Baba said, according to a … Read more

Search guru: What Google ought to change

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Google's good, but it needs to be more transparent with publishers who share revenue and advertisers who buy search ads, a prominent search expert argued Tuesday.

During a speech at the Search Marketing Expo here, longtime search and search marketing guru Danny Sullivan said Google could earn more trust if it were more transparent with advertisers.

For advertisers bidding for search keywords, trying to show their ads next to searches for those terms, Google should show how much advertisers are paying for those terms, Sullivan said.

"Show real-time cost per click for ads," he … Read more

Facebook turns on its 'Like' button

Facebook has been taking a long look at FriendFeed and likes what it sees.

The social-networking site likes FriendFeed's "Like" button so much that--as widely expected--it added its own button that allows members to apply "Like" labels to messages, photos, and other content. The feature, which appears to be getting a gradual rollout, is tucked in between the "Comment" and "Share" options.

Likening the new feature to how one might rate a restaurant, Leah Pearlman of Facebook describes in a blog posting how the "Like" button works: … Read more

Kindle rival Plastic Logic signs up content partners

It's a day for e-reader news. Along with Amazon.com's Kindle 2 announcement, competitor Plastic Logic revealed the first partners to distribute content on its eReader when the device becomes commercially available sometime in 2010.

The partners include Ingram Digital, LibreDigital, and Zinio, which has more than 1,000 digital magazine titles currently in its stable. USA Today and the Financial Times have also signed on.

The eReader--which is designed to store dozens or hundreds of business documents on a very thin digital reader--is about the size of an 8.5 inch by 11 inch pad of paper and weighs less than most print magazines, according to Plastic Logic.

As the name of the company might suggest, it's made with plastic, not glass, meaning that it is designed to be strong and to be able to stand up to being hit with objects or, presumably, even dropped. Furthermore, the eReader is an open platform that allows content creators to offer their digital content in their own way.… Read more

E-book expansion stalled by price

In the story of e-book readers, we're still in the first chapter.

On Monday morning Amazon unveiled its widely anticipated Kindle 2 device at a high-profile event in New York City. The updated, thinner e-book reader included some obvious cosmetic changes from its original Kindle as well as other more evolutionary tweaks. On the same day in the same city, another e-book reader maker, Plastic Logic, looked to stake out territory as the mobile device to read newspapers. Plastic Logic doesn't have a device on the market yet--not until next year--but already it's cementing relationships with newspapers … Read more

Webware 100: The official 2009 kickoff

Welcome to the 2009 Webware 100 awards!

They're back! Just as they did in 2007 and 2008, the 2009 Webware 100 Awards will honor the people's choice for the best Web 2.0 apps and services. Last year, nearly 2 million votes were cast to determine the most popular Web apps. This year, the apps are better and the market is even more competitive, so we expect a vigorous contest.

Nominate sites for the Webware 100 now!

There are 10 categories users can vote on in the Webware 100, plus an 11th category for Webware editors' special awards. … Read more

Report: Amazon scares up Stephen King for Kindle

When Amazon.com hosts its anticipated Monday morning e-book event, one of the highlights could be an exclusive deal for the Kindle with horror story master Stephen King.

The Amazon event, taking place at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, is widely expected to feature the unveiling of a next-generation Kindle e-book reader. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon also will say it has acquired a new work by King that would be exclusively for the Kindle.

The Journal says a Kindle-like device is a factor in the story. The work by King might later … Read more