If there is one thing that writing about technology has taught me, it's that things change, fast. People lament the publishing  'power' of Amazon and they forget that before Amazon, Fictionwise was the e-book destination. Remember Hotmail? Not the leader now, are they? Remember Netscape? Also gone. Things change, fast. And here is my latest example. A week ago, I spent probably 80 percent of my online time on Google products. I used Google Drive to store documents and work on them at home and at school. I used Gmail and Google Calendar for both contacts and scheduling, YouTube for video watching, Google Reader for...

There is a risk to relying on cloud services, as I’ve found to my chagrin time and again: they may not always be there when you need them. Etherpad servers have crashed, taking the only copy of my writing with them. Web-based IM service Meebo shut down, leaving me scrambling to find a replacement. And now comes the latest blow: Google plans to close down its Google Reader RSS reader service (along with a number of other, lesser-used services) as of July 1. I used Google Reader exclusively to find stories to reblog when I was writing more actively here—I would...

The UK-based startup known as ValoBox has been in business for a little over a month now—it launched just a few days before Halloween of this year. To explain the basics of the company's business model in layman's terms, it essentially offers two different digital reading services that seem fairly compelling, at least at first glance: It sells e-books on a 'pay-as-you-go' system, allowing readers to purchase, say, a single page or a single chapter of a book. And it makes those books available to read via a Web browser on your computer, your tablet, your smartphone ... anything with a browser, really....

As keen as I am on library e-books, I’m as much a booster of the buyable variety. I want people to be able to own e-books for real, ideally without DRM. More and more of our books, music, and even personal files, however, are in The Cloud beyond our direct control. Not on our desktops, smartphones or tablets, but on remote severs, maybe thousands of miles from us, perhaps even continents and oceans away. What’s more, this issue has library angles as well. Steve Wozniak, Apple cofounder, has warned about the pitfalls of cloud computing in general, and a security breach of Apple’s iCloud only reinforced his point. All...

CNet reports that Amazon is closing licensing deals with record labels to cover its cloud music service, Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. According to an anonymous source, it has already come to agreements with Universal Music Group, EMI, and Sony Music Entertainment, and is in talks with Warner Music Group. Although Amazon launched its services without licenses, touting fair use rights for users to upload and stream their own content, getting licensed would mean Amazon could add new features that go beyond fair use. While we don't know what new features Amazon will offer, the...

Venture capitalist Bill Gurley’s personal blog, Above the Crowd, has a post pointing out why Dropbox is a “major disruption” (that is, a disruptive innovation—”an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology” per Wikipedia) in the industry. Prompted by a new feature Dropbox added, to allow Android devices to synch photos automatically, Gurley points out that it’s easy to underestimate the importance of what Dropbox has done. He explains that Dropbox was the first...

The ReDigi lawsuit took an intriguing turn yesterday. Google sent a letter to the judge in the EMI v. ReDigi case asking permission to file an amicus brief. Google says that it is not taking sides in the case, but some points of law that will be considered could set important precedents for the future of the cloud hosting industry. Google brings up the Cablevision case that legalized remote-operated DVRs, and the Sony v. Universal case that legalized VCRs and explicitly called “time-shifting” fair use, But the really interesting part is this argument: The final...

Amazon introduced three new e-ink Kindles: a $79 low-low end model, not touch-sensitive and with minimal physical controls (about akin to what the Kobo and other such non-Kindle readers have had up to this point), a $99 Touch WiFi model, and a $149 Touch 3G model (both of which have no physical controls at all). It also introduced the Kindle Fire tablet at the remarkable price point of $199. Amazon Moves Price Point Goal Posts Something that is important and worth mentioning, and that I haven’t seen in the other reports I’ve looked at, is that Amazon has...

A recent decision in the lawsuit against Michael Robertson’s user-uploaded-music locker MP3Tunes.com could have profound implications for the use of media in the cloud—if it stands, profoundly good ones. Music label Capitol Records sued the company for enabling piracy, and attempted to argue that it didn’t qualify for “safe harbor” under the DMCA’s copyright provisions. A judge mostly disagreed—essentially, he said that MP3Tunes was in the clear except on essentially one point. And though a number of places have been spinning that one point as a RIAA “victory”, in actuality the victories for MP3Tunes far outnumber it. That one...

A couple of days ago, Simon Barron at the Guardian posted a piece that claimed “Google can’t be trusted with our books,” because the company decided out of the blue to shut down Google Videos and pitch all user-uploaded content on the site in order to focus more on its search. A public outcry convinced Google to backpedal to the extent that it would see about preserving the content and making it available elsewhere, but Barron sees the original decision as a sign that Google might choose to dump any content at any time if it wants to. ...

“Hey! Hey! Get onto my cloud…” In an update to my story of yesterday, Amazon has announced its cloud-based music locker service. No mention of e-books or movies yet, but perhaps they’re just starting small. The service can be used over the web, or via a player app on Android. No word on an iOS app; perhaps they’ve decided it’s a foregone conclusion in light of Apple’s in-app purchase policies. (Oddly, the service doesn’t even work in iOS’s Mobile Safari browser, apparently because Amazon has expressly told it not to.) The plan provides 5 GB for free, plus...

CNET reports that Amazon is in talks to launch a cloud-based digital media locker service, which would store not only the movies, music, and e-books it sells but also allow consumers to upload their own such content. The company is reportedly in the process of negotiating with content partners, but could announce the project before the negotiations are complete. The article also notes that Apple and Google are in the process of testing their own locker services, and suggests Amazon wants to beat them to the punch. Of course, Amazon has already been providing a number of cloud-based services,...