Tag: Internet

UK publishers have raised concerns about Amazon’s new contractual arrangements, with the giant retailer pressing for improved terms from a number of publishers, even as its stand-off with Hachette Book Group continues in the US.

Along with improved discounts on wholesale contracts, Amazon has introduced a number of new clauses in publisher contracts. One causing particular worry is a proviso that should a book be out of stock from the publisher, Amazon would be entitled to supply its own copies to customers via its print-on-demand facilities.

But when I pitched my vision for the section to Vox, it wasn’t about explaining the nuts and bolts of the industry to readers all of the time. That’s useful, and that’s helpful, but my sense is that readers, more than ever, want a guide or map to the culture at large, which can often seem bewildering or overwhelming. I take as our mission to “explain the culture” the idea that what people will want, more than anything, is a collection of voices they can trust, who will steer them correctly, then provide context for the culture they’re consuming. That, in other words, sounds a lot like traditional criticism to me. And criticism can take many, many forms. Some of those will be long-form essays. Some will be quick hits or collections of GIFs. That cultural coverage right now is so malleable is exciting to me, and I want to exploit that as much as possible.

There’s a kind of unspoken promise that comes along with any delayed reading service: At some point, you’ll have time to read this really great thing. But as anyone who has stared into the void of an Instapaper or Pocket queue knows, that’s often a pipe dream.

What if you could rescue your favorite saved reads by putting them into print, with one click? That’s the idea behind PaperLater, a new service that lets users create a personalized newspaper from their favorite must-reads from around the web.

What we have is a new set of middlemen, the crowdfunding services, who skim off a percentage of each successfully funded project. Their genius is to make the big feel small, where you’re both individually valued and a part of a cosy digital island of like-minded people, but in many ways perform the same function of a label: a facilitator for culture. They’re not merely a cog – Kickstarter carefully selects the projects it allows – but this isn’t a total revolution yet, infrastructure-wise.

More conceptually, the problem is that a crowd tends to know what it wants. A campaign that brings a massive band to a small town is true democracy, and hugely heartening – but these and crowdfunding projects tend to work most effectively when you’re preaching to the choir, where fandom can be leveraged. For a project whose worth to the potential funder is less immediately demonstrable – and where fandom can’t fill that gap – it can be tricky.

This case is not only crucially important in that it will force the court to clarify its own “true threats” doctrine and finally apply it to social media to determine whether—as Justice Stephen Breyer has suggested—the whole world is a crowded theater. But perhaps it’s even more important in pushing the conversation about law enforcement, prosecution, and threats to include a much more sophisticated understanding of the ways in which the Internet is not just a rally or a letter.

This social media outpouring makes it clear that some men pose a real threat to the physical and psychic welfare of women and girls. But obscured in the public conversation about the violence against women is the fact that some other men are more likely to protect women, directly and indirectly, from the threat of male violence: married biological fathers. The bottom line is this: Married women are notably safer than their unmarried peers, and girls raised in a home with their married father are markedly less likely to be abused or assaulted than children living without their own father.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Autoblow 2 Sets New Record For Crowdfunded Adult Product

Contributors Can Now Opt To Attend Official Autoblow 2 Commercial Shoot!

Chicago, IL – June 3, 2014 … The Autoblow 2, an electronic robotic male masturbator, has raised over $230,000 from more than 2100 men in 25 countries on crowdfunding site Indiegogo.com. With days still left in its Indiegogo campaign, the Autoblow 2 has beaten the adult toy crowdfunding record by over $65,000, and exceeded its original funding goal by over 500%. To view the campaign, please visit: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/autoblow-2-a-realistic-robotic-oral-sex-simulator-for-men/x/5153216.

“I’m really humbled by the outpouring of support from all over the world for our product. Our whole team is super happy to know that soon, tens of thousands of men will having more realistic masturbatory experiences”, said Sloan.

Contributors can now opt to attend the official Autoblow 2 commercial shoot – featuring adult stars in both NSFW and SFW promo footage. Guests will be privy to an intimate adults-only film shoot including airfare and accommodations within the US. To learn more about this exclusive offer, please visit the Autoblow 2’s Indiegogo campaign and read about the $2999 perk.

The Autoblow 2 will deliver a series of firsts in the male toys niche. It will be the first electric stroker (it plugs into the wall), the first stroker to work with 3 sizes of removable sleeves, and the first mechanized male pleasure product built to last for years. The motor is rated to last over 500 hours, or about 1500 solo experiences.

Educated as a lawyer, Sloan’s creative side won out, and in 2007 the Chicago native moved to Beijing, China to pursue new business opportunities. Since moving to China, he has created the Autoblow, Mangasm and Ladygasm brands of adult toys. The Autoblow 2, he says, will set a new benchmark for quality and realism in the male toys niche.