Linked List: July 13, 2011

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

WSJ: Amazon Plans iPad Rival in Coming Months ★

Stu Woo and Yukari Iwatani Kane, reporting for the WSJ:

Amazon.com Inc. plans to introduce a tablet computer before October, said people familiar with the matter, in a move that will heighten the online retailer’s rivalry with Apple Inc.

The Seattle-based company will also release two updated versions of its popular Kindle electronic reader in the third quarter of the year, the people said. One will be a touch-screen device. The other won’t have a touch screen, but will be an improved and cheaper adaptation of the current Kindle, said people who have seen the device.

I wonder if Amazon thinks of tablets as PCs.

Apple Announces App Store Volume Purchasing for Business ★

Apple:

Whether you’re providing apps to two employees or ten thousand, the Volume Purchase Program makes it simple to find, buy, and distribute the apps your business needs.

The Volume Purchase Program also provides a way to purchase custom B2B apps built by third-party developers to meet the unique needs of your business.

Interesting. Wonder how approval will work for these B2B apps?

Bancroft Family Members Express Regrets at Selling Wall Street Journal to Murdoch ★

Richard Tofel, ProPublica:

“If I had known what I know now, I would have pushed harder against” the Murdoch bid, said Christopher Bancroft, a member of the family which controlled Dow Jones & Company, publishers of The Wall Street Journal. Bancroft said the breadth of allegations now on the public record “would have been more problematic for me. I probably would have held out.” Bancroft had sole voting control of a trust that represented 13 percent of Dow Jones shares in 2007 and served on the Dow Jones Board.

How in the world could anyone have suspected four years ago that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. — the company behind Fox News — might not be stewards of journalistic integrity?

Guess I Was Wrong About the ‘Slowly’ Part ★

Speaking of AOL/TechCrunch, here’s Dave Feldman on the process behind their new branding and website design:

As Michael Arrington posted on Friday I’m Dave Feldman, and I’ve been acting as product manager for the TechCrunch redesign since the beginning of 2011. The project began last fall before AOL’s acquisition of TechCrunch. By December it needed product management — providing feedback and direction to the design agency (Code & Theory), defining product requirements, understanding TechCrunch’s unusually collaborative editorial process, determining information architecture, and ultimately coordinating the development and launch. Mike asked AOL’s Brad Garlinghouse for a product manager & project lead. He turned to AOL’s head of Consumer Experience, Matte Scheinker (my manager). Matte’s team specializes in “strategic projects” where additional product, design, and/or process expertise is needed. He agreed to take on the project and put me on the case.

After Arrington sold TechCrunch to AOL, I expected AOL to slowly but surely saddle them with a bunch of “biz-dev” jerkoffs and institutional bureaucracy.

More on AllThingsD and Linking/Crediting ★

MG Siegler, on this Ina Fried report for AllThingsD that’s seemingly based on a TechCrunch story but gives no link or credit to TechCrunch:

But here’s the problem. Fried reports it as happening “last week”, but that’s not true at all. The spin-off actually happened six weeks ago. I knew this information when I wrote the story, but I didn’t include it, because I didn’t think it was particularly relevant. But it has turned out to be a great trap!

What Fried is essentially saying by saying “last week” is that she read our report from last week and assumed it happened at that time (a fair assumption, but an incorrect one!). How can one do such a thing and still get away without citing or linking? Well, it’s clearly a pattern of jackassery.

He tacks on a link to this other story, which does mention TechCrunch reporting, but doesn’t include a link to the article.

EA Buys PopCap for $750 Million in Cash and Stock ★

Would this have happened if not for iOS?

Marked ★

Clever idea, nicely presented: Marked is a Mac app that gives you a Markdown preview from any text editor. $2.99 on the App Store.

‘They’re Selling a Screen With a Giant Calculator Attached to It. It’s Not a Cool Device Anymore.’ ★

Terrific inside look at RIM by Jonathan Geller at BGR, based on interviews with current and former employees at the company:

RIM was hoping to blow through the 500,000 units and have carriers take orders for millions of additional PlayBooks, but that has not happened yet. Mike Lazaridis looks at it as, why aren’t people buying this tablet when it has the most powerful engine with respect to multitasking, and supports Flash? But consumers have spoken pretty loudly a number of times, and Mike unfortunately leads the product side and continues to miss the mark with the masses, a former RIM executive told me. “I don’t even see anyone in Waterloo walking around with a PlayBook that doesn’t work for RIM,” another former RIM employee said.