Monday News: Bill Gates’s best books, Best Buy’s comeback, Netflix’s successful strategy, the British Library’s image library, and a classic library of vintage erotic fiction
Publishing NewsBest Buy / best of list / digital publishing / erotica / public domain9 Comments
The Best Books I Read in 2013 – If you have any interest in what Bill Gates read this year, you will want to read his list of 2013’s best books. Marc Levinson’s The Box is his top choice — even though he says the books are not listed in order of preference — and the list is rounded out by Pau Sabin’s The Bet, which is actually a book about “the public debate about whether the world is headed for an environmental catastrophe.” Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be any fiction on the list. The Gates Notes
Underdog Against Amazon, Best Buy Charges Ahead – Those of you who believe that Amazon is the evil empire take heart: Best Buy seems to be winning the electronics battle — at least for now. What makes this even more impressive is that Best Buy was continuing to sink, both in sales and stock prices, until they hired Hubert Joly as their CEO almost eighteen months ago. Although there was worry that the little known Joly was the only guy who would take the job, analysts and investors are now hoping he’s the man who’s going to help keep the marketplace diversified.
“Best Buy stock has gained nearly 240 percent so far this year, putting it among the top three performing stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Now every struggling chain, from J. C. Penney to Barnes & Noble, is scrutinizing Best Buy to figure out how the company did it.” New York Times
Unsurprising: Netflix Survey Indicates People Like To Binge-Watch TV – There are some interesting survey results here regarding Netflix subscriber habits, including the fact that 61% binge watch, while 73% perceive binge watching to be a positive, with 76% admitting that they watch more than one episode of a show at a time. More interesting than even these results, however, are the issues this survey raises about the Netflix model and its competitive viability in an increasingly crowded visual media marketplace:
“With that in mind, we could argue that Netflix’s approach is an effort to compensate for sub-par programming, but it’s really not. Some of their original shows, including Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, are on par with premium cable these days. They have the goods. They don’t need a gimmick to make people watch. But releasing this survey does indicate that they see the value in the approach they’re taking, and it’s putting them ahead of the pack in terms of how other networks and services release their content. “ Television Blend
British Library uploads one million public domain images to the net for remix and reuse – Another extremely cool example of digitized images for free, public use images, dating back to the 17th century, with an attendant crowd sourced application that will allow people to share availability of the images, as well as ideas for use and reuse.
“There are very few datasets of this nature free for any use and by putting it online we hope to stimulate and support research concerning printed illustrations, maps and other material not currently studied. Given that the images are derived from just 65,000 volumes and that the library holds many millions of items.” Boing Boing
Vintage Greenleaf Classics Books – Are you familiar with Greenleaf Books? Published in multiple lines between 1959 and 1975, 4,300 books were published by different companies and under different names, with tittles like Dead Heat to Degradation, The Flesh Collector, Virtuoso Virgin, Hornier Than Thou, Daddy and Me, and Bunny Hop Swap. Defending itself against obscenity charges, these imprints published a huge array of adult books that, in many ways, will seem familiar to those who are aware of much of the erotic fiction published today. In fact, this archive of titles and covers, which is searchable but still in progress, is a good reminder that nothing is ever really new. Greenleaf Classics Books
Bunny Hop Swap- what a great title to start a Monday morning.
I saw the story about the British Library last night and started dancing in my chair.
Also, I was binge-watching “Whitechapel” this weekend.
@Karenmc: Agreed. I love that these images are available. What a very generous, public-spirited thing to do.
Also, I was binge-watching “Sleepy Hollow” to get caught up, after doing the same with season two of “Homeland” last week. Now if only “The Newsroom” would show up on DVD, I can complete my trifecta.
Mmm, a netflix binge…yeah I know about those. DH and I went through seasons 1 and 2 of “the Tudors” this weekend and are planning to get a few episodes in every evening this week. For episodic drama that connects into one large story arc, it is hard NOT to binge when you have the capability at your fingertips. And no commercials.
@Karenmc:
Is Whitechapel on Netflix now? I looked a couple of months ago and they didn’t have it (streaming).
It seems like everytime I try to find a movie – even one that was released 2-5 years ago – it’s not on Netflix streaming. I’ve been really frustrated with that. There just isn’t that much on TV that I want to watch these days!
@MikiS: Just to let you know, I did watch Whitechapel (3 seasons) on Netflix.
Netflix also has the first season of Fall, the Gillian Anderson series that is going into a second season. I’ve been fascinated by the reaction of various reviewers. There’s no real mystery about who the killer is and that he is a sexually sadistic psychopath but people keep saying that they find him more likable than Anderson’s character for reasons that I can’t give for fear of spoilers. I think a point is being missed there.
I binge-watched DEAD LIKE ME, then cried at the end because there were no more.
@DS: I found the first three seasons of Whitechapel on Amazon Prime Instant. Rupert Penry-Jones is a lovely, lovely man.