Peter McCarthy's Profile

Amazon and Barnes and Noble both have apps on the store, and the big issue for ScrollMotion is that their books often cost more than in the Kindle store. For example, Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama costs $14.99 via ScrollMotion’s Iceberg Reader [iTunes link], but only $9.99 on the Kindle Store. Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers costs $9.99 on the Kindle Store, but a startling $19.99 on the Iceberg Reader. However, most non-bestsellers show no significant difference in price

he Iceberg Reader’s in-app purchase still uses the iTunes store’s billing and payment system, which means Apple gets a 30% cut of the sales. The Kindle app, on the other hand, is free and you buy books directly from the Kindle Store. I assume that means they don’t give Apple anything. Bet Apple doesn’t like that too much. They’ve definitely shown their love for ScrollMotion, and may be their biggest advocate. They’ve featured ScrollMotion apps multiple times on the App Store, which can significantly improve app sales.

But despite the difficulties of taking on Amazon, ScrollMotion has sold over 200,000 books and that’s nothing to scoff at. Remember that most books are upwards of $10, which means they’ve sold almost $1 million worth of books. Add that to the fact that ScrollMotion has deals to create iPhone apps for People, Esquire, ESPN The Magazine, and Bon Appetit, and ScrollMotion is quietly running a successful indie publishing business on the iPhone.

The iRex has an 8.1-inch touch screen and links to buy digital books in Barnes & Noble’s e-bookstore and periodicals from NewspaperDirect, a service that offers more than 1,100 papers and presents them onscreen largely as they appear in print form.

This year, iRex talked with Barnes & Noble about putting the bookseller’s brand, and not its own, on the new device. But they could not reach an agreement, said Kevin Hamilton, the chief executive of iRex’s North American division

William Lynch, president of Barnes & Noble’s online business, declined to say whether the bookseller was working on its own reading device, but said it “planned to market digital books in really big and interesting ways” to the 77 million customers who walk into its stores every year. The Barnes & Noble e-bookstore will also be available through a large-screen device from the start-up Plastic Logic, which is expected next year.

"The services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the content or information on the services, queries made through the services, or other information," the terms read. "The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the services are subject to change."

Several people familiar with the matter also said Facebook is on track to earn more than $500 million in revenue in 2009, which would represent more than 70% growth from 2008

The upside of having results categorized is there's an opportunity for aggressive marketers to have more than one listing on a page for non-branded queries

Fundamentally, Google's algorithms give more weight to inbound links, while Bing focuses more on the content or the keywords contained on pages.

Clancy stressed the importance of making it possible to buy the digital books in traditional bricks-and-mortar bookstores, as well as online.