By Brian Howard It’s official. The old trope “There’s no such thing as bad press” can be retired. For good. Witness the campaign against Randall Sullivan’s Michael Jackson bio Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. As reported in The New York Times, Sullivan’s book focuses on the superstar’s last years and, despite being characterized as a generally sympathetic look at Jackson, has come under siege by a group of fans who take issue with some of the book’s statements. And so they launched a flotilla of mostly anonymous one-star reviews seemingly aimed at not just discrediting the book, but killing it. As the barriers to publication...

Amazon video - NOT impartial review Did Amazon tuck away a microphone in the Kindle 3 with the idea of adding a phone option later, not just for possible fun with a voice navigation option? That’s my guess, after having read Andrys Basten’s mention of the “’not currently enabled microphone provided for future use.’” A phone option for the Kindle would be Jeff Bezos’s way to weaken the iPhone’s multi advantage. Yes, maybe just one gizmo to tote after all---the K machine rather than an iPhone. Perhaps you would pay extra for a wireless connection that worked with the phone. Presto! New...

That's the thrust of an article in The Cincinnati Beacon which found that Rachel Friedman, a public relations agent, has written 72 reviews: Ever read a book review on Amazon.com that was so rah-rah and uncritical that you wondered if the reviewer might have connections to the author or publisher? That’s what happened to us recently. A few mouse clicks later, we found ourselves asking serious questions about scores of five-star book reviews posted by one Amazon user and her connections to a prominent national PR company in Clearwater, Florida. ... Nearly every book reviewed by Friedman was associated with publicity...