Allen Weiner

Both Google and Microsoft (Bing) have announced plans to add Twitter results (and, in case of Microsoft, Facebook updates) to search results. This is an interesting achievement for sure, but one that leaves me in major so-what mode. There has been a lot of buzz around searching the real-time web, and both [...]

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Putting aside my instincts to avoid writing about rumor (oops. I have said that before), an overwhelming number of published reports indicate that book retailer Barnes and Noble is about to launch an ereader, joining the parade of devices that includes the Kindle, Sony’s family of products and devices soon to [...]

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Word is leaking out (no doubt from Microsoft itself) on the Courier tablet. Looks very cool but it raises more questions that offers answers. If it’s the device that supports cool Silverlight applications for content providers, it will be quite interesting. So far, Apple has little to worry about if it intends to offer a [...]

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A recent survey from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC)  of its U.S. and Canadian newspaper, magazine and business membership to learn more about publishers’ current mobile initiatives and strategic plans underscores the hope publishers see in e-distribution. Close to 58% of all newspaper publishers format their content for viewing [...]

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The latest installment in the Google-Amazon drama. Continued negotiations to follow.
“The current settlement proposal would stifle innovation and competition in favor of a monopoly over the access, distribution and pricing of the largest collection of digital books in the world, and would reinforce an already dominant position in search and search advertising,” said the Open [...]

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I met a few folks on my recent European travel who scoffed at the pervasive power of e-books as a replacement for the touchy-feely experience of holding a print book in their hands. “You can’t read an e-book in the bath,” one naysayer told me a few weeks back. To that romantic reader, I say, [...]

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First off: Google’s Fast Flip is absolutely nothing special. The service allows readers to rapidly skim through electronic reproductions of news web pages to get a comprehensive view on a topic (or person or place…) of interest and then drill down by clicking to get a full view of an individual story. It will work [...]

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