Last year, I wrote about my efforts to have a bit of fun with the tradition of sending Christmas cards. Two years ago, thanks to Charles Apple, I became aware of Red Letter Paper Co., the creation of Stephanie Hinderer, a former visual journalist who found herself frustrated with what was in stores and took her own spin on Christmas cards. I’ve once again gravitated back to her store, as each year she refreshes the line with new choices and I never come away disappointed. Continue reading
Last year, I shared with you Amazon’s 25 Days of Free Holiday Songs, a recurring promotion they have offered which features 25 free MP3s to download for the holidays. The good news is it’s back, and the mixed news is it’s about as good as last year’s batch. Continue reading
I was just sent this, footage from a fight that broke out during the parade of people fighting over cheap TVs at a Wal-Mart. I worked Black Friday a couple of times as a Circuit City employee, including watching my store manager at the time, rolling out some more cheap portable CD players (ooh!), get knocked on his rump by people who couldn’t wait. Continue reading
As a significant percentage of the population begin to prepare to work off their turkey dinner by racing through Wal-Mart fighting with the woman next to them for a $100 TV, comes a story that all that effort may be for nearly nothing. Continue reading
It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote a post about the pending eBook settlements, and how it looked like it wouldn’t be much longer to receive the settlement payments. I was wrong, but fortunately the news isn’t all bad.
Amazon sent out notices to customers around Labor Day weekend noting that the payments were still pending, but they had grown, due to additional settlements made with more publishers. Thanks to the additional payments, the amount paid per book has now increased, with New York Times bestsellers estimated to garner a refund of $3.06 per book, with non-bestsellers $.73 per book. That’s more than double the previously announced numbers.
Still the same is people who bought eBooks from a major company, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, will by default receive the refunds directly from the company as credit towards future purchases. As a result of the additional settlements, however, people have now been given a second window to request a check, as opposed to receiving a credit. That window ends in mid-October.
Still vague is when the money will be paid, but the earliest will be early December, which is when the final hearing will be; appeals could force further delays, but with all the publishers on board and the payments heavily increased, it’s less likely to happen now.
Awhile back, I wrote about a technology that let Amazon provide customers a digital copy of CDs previously purchased through the service. That service is now expanding to Kindle copies of books previously bought in print. The catch with the MatchBook service is that in many cases customers will need to pay a small fee to get the Kindle copy, but the fee (when required) will range between 99 cents and $2.99. Continue reading
While shopping the other day I tripped across something I’d never seen before: The Cadbury Screme Egg. It appears to have existed overseas for awhile, but it’s a new product here in the U.S. My initial reaction was a mixture of excitement… and sadness. Continue reading
Fox Business’ report on Abercrombie & Fitch’s pretty spectacular profit drop reads more like a movie pitch to Fox for a horror movie. It amused me greatly this morning: Continue reading
This has been sitting in my drafts folder for awhile, but it’s worth talking about now, as the topic continues to evolve and settlement money should be arriving soon.
For those not paying attention, lawsuits were filed against the largest book publishers and Apple for colluding to raise the price of eBooks, which had been held down by Amazon holding the line at a $9.99 price on many titles. The change to what’s called the agency model of pricing put restrictions on pricing that attorneys general in just about every state fought. The publishers opted to settle, and the result of that is a credit for each book purchased in a roughly two year window, anywhere between $0.30 (the average book by the publishers in question) and $1.32 (New York Times bestseller).
For purchasers from some of the big book sellers, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the process is frictionless; credits will be placed in purchasers’ accounts for use on other purchases. For others, the check request deadline has long passed. Meanwhile, although the settlement was approved in February, a follow-up in March started a six-month clock that will expire in a few weeks, meaning people should finally see their share soon.
Ironically, the reason for the pricing change was to level the playing field, as Amazon was considered to be running away with the eBook market at the time. Yet Barnes & Noble’s Nook division has long been struggling, and many suspect Apple’s iBooks sales, while certainly decent, haven’t been stellar. Of course, the numbers for most of these companies are shrouded in opaque statements, so it’s hard to know for sure, but at least in Amazon and Apple’s cases, they’re clearly not going anywhere anytime soon.
One of the more exciting parts about technology for me is the times when a very simple idea proves to be a great help or time saver. It’s something I strive for and teach people regularly at my job, as I think sometimes a very elegant solution implemented in the right spot, however simple it may be, can really bolster a person’s opinion of a business. Continue reading