Notes From the Bibliosphere: Douch-y things Amazon did, gender as a genre, and Youtube
It’s Sunday, 18 December 2011, which means it’s time for another Notes from the Bibliosphere. This is a semi-regular feature in which I share various things I’ve discovered/wanted to share from around the bibliosphere.
- Recently, Amazon had a promotion in which it essentially paid people to go into their competitor’s stores, scan an item using Amazon’s app on their smartphone, and then walk out of the store. When someone did this, Amazon gave them $5 off when they ordered the item from Amazon. Opinions about this promotion vary from Richard Russo’s piece in the New York Times (which essentially says that this was an underhanded move on Amazon’s part) to Farhad Manjoo’s piece in Slate (in which he pretty much argues that it’s independent booksellers – not Amazon – that are bad for the book industry and the economy). If you want my opinion on the matter, all I can say is that my opinion more closely aligns with Russo’s than Manjoo’s. If this is something you care about, there’s a petition on Change.org.
- Over on the Bitch blogs, Avital Norman Nathman argued that gender isn’t a genre when it comes to books. She uses an example of a pair of books about summer activities – one about activities for boys and one for girls. The problem, she points out, is that it suggests that certain activities are gendered; god forbid a boy want to do a “feminine” activity or vice versa.
- And because I’ve been watching a lot of book channels on Youtube, I’d like to remind you that I got the idea for the monthly theme challenge from Priscilla of thereadables. I absolutely love her videos and can’t say enough good things about her channel. There are certainly tons of other amazing book channels on Youtube as well. In fact, I should probably mention some of the other ones I enjoy in later installments of Notes from the Bibliosphere.
This is pretty much what I see Notes From The Bibliosphere becoming. Yes, it’s pretty much a links round up. Because of the holidays, I probably won’t be doing this again until the New Year.
