Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Barnes & Noble Loves Mommy Porn!

The second quarter of the year is supposed to be a slow one for booksellers, but not this year: Barnes & Noble says its comparable bookstore sales jumped 4.6 percent. Strip out Nook sales, and the number improves to 7.6 percent.

Some of that bump occurred because B&N’s onetime rival, Borders, went out of business last year.

The rest of it? “Strong sales of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ series,” the company says. See? It’s not just you — everyone’s reading this stuff.

Meanwhile, B&N says its Nook business posted flat sales for the quarter, but saw losses increase from $51 million to $57 million. It still plans to create a new Nook subsidiary with $300 million in funding from Microsoft.


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Moore’s Law means that more and more things can be done practically for free, if only it weren’t for those people who want to be paid. People are the flies in Moore’s Law’s ointment. When machines get incredibly cheap to run, people seem correspondingly expensive.

— From Jaron Lanier’s new book, “Who Owns the Future?” excerpted on Wired.com