Posts Tagged ‘Amazon Kindle’
credit: Pixar
At USDemocrazy, we scour the Internet, compiling news stories that we find insightful, hilarious or just plain interesting. Today, during our hard work (OK, we might have been playing Solitaire too), we found some stories from the business world – stories that suggest that the economy is doing better!
First up, Ebay reported growth in earnings for the last quarter and the world’s most famous coffee shop, Starbucks, saw its revenue get a caffeine jolt upwards.
Then, we read the GREAT news that Bank of America was increasing their employees’ paychecks. (Our editors could use a lesson from them!) Wall Street company Morgan Stanley is also spending more money on payroll, recently adding more workers.
Finally, Amazon introduced a plan to pay authors and publishers a greater percentage from their Kindle e-book sales.
Of course, we’re no economic experts (some most would say we’re not experts on anything), but during this time when a lot of folks are suffering, it’s good to hear there is SOME good economic news out there!
Thanks to the Onion.
Getting the guns some sun. Joe Biden washes his car.
It’s open for discussion. Schwarzenegger’s fine for talking about marijuana.
And that makes one more. Maine legalizes gay marriage.
Kindleling my love for eBooks. Amazon.com’s got a new toy.
We at USDemocrazy are nutzo for the ‘net, but we’ve also talked before about our passion for paper. Thus, we get kinda depressed when we hear of major American newspapers shrinking, shrivelling and shutting down all together.
Ever heard of a little (OK, not little) paper called the Boston Globe? We have learned the venerable Globe came pretty darn close to being shut-down by its parent company, The New York Times Company. Fortunately, we also learned (through newspapers, no less) the close-down crisis may had been averted.
The New York Times Company, the Globe, and the three major Boston unions worked through the night on Sunday and reach a deal. The Globe stated:
This includes agreements with the drivers, mailers, pressmen, the electricians, machinists, and technical services group. As a result of these agreements, which are subject to ratification by union members, we expect to achieve both the workplace flexibility and the financial savings that we sought from these unions.
It appeared maybe a modern metropolitan media meltdown may have been missed! BUT NO!
One of the unions, the Boston Newspaper Guild, has stopped… and then resumed negotiations with the paper over lifetime job guarantees for 200 of its employees. (The Globe reportedly offered to cut Guild wages by 23%.)
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE! There’s MORE!
Some Washington big-wigs are coming to the Globe’s rescue! Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, insist that the biggest newspaper in their state should not be left to die. John Kerry declares newspapers are vital to our free democracy. (We tend to agree.)
This all comes amid the announcement of Amazon’s newest version of the Kindle, which is rumoured to have a larger screen and facilitated for reading news “papers.” We’re keeping our eyes on the news of the newest Kindle, which we’re wondering will make news “papers” obsolete entirely…
