Apple Users Download 35 Million Books

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that iTunes users had downloaded 35 million books  and audiobook on iTunes and is now launching iTunes 10.

Tech blog GDGT quoted Jobs as saying: “People have downloaded over 11.7 billion songs from iTunes, and we’re just about to cross 12b. Over 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies, 35 million books, and over 160 million accounts with credit cards and 1-click shopping in 23 countries.”   Media Bistro

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Freedom advance reviews have declared it the book of the century

Praise has ranged from Time magazine, who plastered author Jonathan Franzen on its cover with the headline “Great American Novelist,” to The New York Times (The Audio  Book’s So Nice, We Reviewed It Twice). President Obama even chose it as his beach audio book reading on Martha’s Vineyard.

The drumbeat of hype has been so relentless that it has already sparked a backlash, with bestselling authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner – who feel they deserve a bit of the ink splashed on Franzen – arguing that the Times offers such accolades mostly to white males living in New York. Weiner’s Twitter hashtag, Franzenfreude, is pretty funny.  Christian Science Monitor

Chinas Google Offers E-Books, Games, Audiobooks in Search of New Revenue

Baidu Inc., operator of China’s most used website, started an e-book service today and added 500 applications to its website to diversify beyond Internet search.

Readers will be able to read and store purchased electronic books on the website, Chief Executive Officer Robin Li said at a conference in Beijing today. Baidu is offering applications by developers including PopCap Games Inc., maker of hit mobile games such as “Peggle” and “Bejeweled2,” the company said today. Bloomberg

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Browse for books and audio books at Simonandschuster.com

The multimedia section also features audio interviews with authors and offers contests where participants can enter to win a free download of entire audio books. Finally, if you register with the site for free, you can post and read other teen reviews of audio books they have read or particular authors they are hooked on. Kansas City Star

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Some ways to get anti-social on networks

The age of social media has made it easier than ever to stay connected with the people you know, but it has also made it almost inevitable that users will come to feel overwhelmed by interruptions, updates and status reports. So now, the technology that turned people into 24/7 communicators has spawned a tool kit that discreetly lets users be just a tad antisocial on their own networks. Washington Post

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Washington Post Suspends Columnist for Twitter Hoax

On Monday morning, Mike Wise, a sports columnist at The Washington Post, published to his Twitter account that the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended for five games.

Now Mr. Wise himself is suspended.

The information Mr. Wise published about Mr. Roethlisberger was made up — a test, he said, of how fast a piece of misinformation could spread online. (Mr. Roethlisberger was suspended for six games, not five, after he was accused of sexual assault in March, and the N.F.L. is considering whether to reduce the suspension.) Mr. Wise followed his initial post about the quarterback with three others about his sourcing for the news. And by the end of the day, the paper had suspended him for a month.  N Y Times

Murdoch may be key to Apples plan to offer 99 cent digital rentals of TV shows

Apple plans a six-month trial of 99-cent rentals for each episode of a TV show. The digital downloads would be viewable on the iPad, above, and other devices. (Marcio Jose Sanchez, Associated Press / January 26, 2010)

Executives of the media baron’s News Corp. are said to be split over whether to go along with the plan. NBC, CBS and Single episodes of such popular shows as “Glee” or “Lie to Me” are available to purchase for as much as $3.99 at Apple’s iTunes store. Some executives of News Corp., which owns the Fox network, worry that offering 99-cent episode rentals will cut into lucrative DVD sales and pull viewers away from watching network TV, thereby eroding a $20-billion advertising market, these people said.Time Warner are opposed, while Disney is in favor. LA Times

The Best eReaders Compared Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Reader Throw Down

With Amazon’s recent announcement that digital e-books outsold hardcover books for the first time, and paperbacks destined to a similar fate in the near future, we can safely say the e-book revolution is upon us. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that the devices upon which we read those books — digital e-readers, tablet computers, smartphones — are anywhere near their final form. Last December, we took a look at the most popular e-readers on the market, and, while many companies have made only incremental alterations to their lineups since then, a few new additions and serious price-drops among others have vastly changed the landscape.  Switched

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Twitter is killing support for basic user authentication in third-party apps

Tuesday morning, the company says. Instead, Twitter will now require all third-party app developers to use OAuth for user authentication.

This is a planned move Twitter first announced in December, and the company has posted a help page on its developer site with some resources meant to ease the transition to OAuth.

The Twitter API team has been dialing down the number of requests an app can make using the basic authorization method. That number will hit zero at 8AM Pacific time Tuesday.

Ryan Seacrest, Larry King plotting airwaves takeover

“American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest is just not satisfied with his 50+ jobs — he is now plotting world media domination, starting with Larry King. According to TMZ, Seacrest is reportedly in talks to produce/distribute a new syndicated radio show Larry King. Radio is where both Seacrest and King got their starts, many moons ago.

This move is part of a mega-media empire Seacrest is planning with DreamWorks Animation Chief Jeffrey Katzenberg that would include radio, TV and the internet. Seacrest’s contract with Clear Channel media, where he currently does his morning radio show, is up in November.  Zap2it