Techmeme: Amazon and the “profitless business model” fallacy (Eugene Wei/Remains of the Day)

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October 27, 2013, 4:05 PM

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Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:

Amazon and the “profitless business model” fallacy — [DISCLOSURE: As always when I write about Amazon, I'll note I worked there from 1997-2004 and that I still own some shares in the company. I still have many friends who work there, though I have no more idea what Amazon is working on now than any of you in the public.]

More: A VC, TechSpot, Beyond Search and Slate

Tweets: @jeffweiner, @jonfortt, @bupbin, @gregbettinelli and @monkbent

James Somers / The Atlantic Online:

Disappointed with application-driven AI, Douglas Hofstadter seeks to recreate mind in software — The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think — Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we've lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means.

More: The Verge. Tweets: @alexismadrigal, @deatkin and @tsimonite

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Thoughts and Observations Regarding This Week's Apple Event Introducing the iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini — The Show Itself — There is a certain sameness to almost every Apple event. A pattern, a formula, a structure, a rhythm and pacing. Does this make them boring?

More: iPhone Hacks, Forbes, iMore, Business Insider and the rajam report

Tweets: @natebarham, @monkbent, @stevecheney, @panzer, @pbyrne and @mattlynley

USC:

USC Study: Google Search Serves Users From 600% More Locations than A Year Ago — In a shift in strategy, Google reuses existing content delivery infrastructure to speed up searches — Contact: Robert Perkins at (213) 740-9226 or perkinsr@usc.edu — Over the past 10 months …

More: Digits, TechCrunch and The Econonomic Times

John Lilly / Medium:

Free software strengthens Apple's business - systems, while disturbing Microsoft's - software — Cups of Water … My partner Reid has a fun metaphor he uses when he's describing how companies think about their core strategies (which don't change very much).

More: Benedict Evans. Tweets: @chrisyeh and @monkbent

Mark Gurman / 9to5Google:

Upcoming Nexus 5 leaks in white, Nov. 1 launch date reported — After leaking a clear image of the black model yesterday, prolific leaker @evleaks has posted a render of the upcoming Nexus 5 in a white color option. As can be seen in the image above, the white model is actually a two-tone device …

More: Engadget, The Next Web, The Verge and TechnoBuffalo

Tweets: @evleaks and @evleaks

Cory Scott / Official LinkedIn Blog:

LinkedIn explains security features behind Intro, its controversial email routing product — The Facts about LinkedIn Intro — This blog post is intended to provide more information and address inaccurate assertions that have been made as a result of a product we launched on Wednesday called LinkedIn Intro.

More: The Verge, The Next Web, WebProNews and The State of Security

Tweets: @digiphile and @jacobian

Jim Newell / Guardian:

Thousands gather in Washington for anti-NSA ‘Stop Watching Us’ rally — Statement from whistleblower Edward Snowden read to crowd featuring groups from left and right of political spectrum — Thousands gathered by the Capitol reflection pool in Washington on Saturday to march, chant …

More: Firedoglake, The Hill, The Huffington Post, Associated Press, RT, CNET, PC World, SlashGear, The Raw Story and I4U News

Tweets: @stopwatchingus and @sinak

Joel Gascoigne / Buffer Open:

Buffer restores all sharing services after hacking incident — Buffer has been hacked - here is what's going on — Update: All posting should be working normally again, read more below! — I wanted to post a quick update and apologize for the awful experience we've caused many of you on your weekend.

More: The Next Web, Geek News Central and WindowsObserver.com. Tweets: @buffer

John McCrank / Reuters:

Exclusive: Aiming to avoid Facebook chaos, NYSE runs Twitter IPO test — (Reuters) - The New York Stock Exchange on Saturday did a test run of Twitter's highly anticipated market debut, as it seeks to avoid the types of problems that plagued Facebook's initial public offering on rival Nasdaq.

More: The Atlantic Wire and Forbes

Allen Martin / CBS San Francisco:

Barge in SF Bay may be a marketing center for Glass if Google gets a waterfront permit — Massive Barge On San Francisco Bay Likely Secret Google Facility — SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — The U.S. Navy had its share of secrets on Treasure Island, but few were better kept than what's taking place …

More: The Verge and CNET. Thanks:@_trendspotter

Thomas Gryta / Digits:

AT&T's Plan Revamp Signals the End of Voice Minutes — The days of worrying about minutes ticking away on your cell phone plan are nearly gone. — As of today, AT&T is dropping the availability of its old plans for new smartphone subscribers, and all of the remaining plans include unlimited calling …

More: SlashGear

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Next on Deck for Snapchat and Pinterest: Some Sales Help? — Earlier this week, AllThingsD broke the news of two major fundings of a pair of hot startups: Scrapbooking service Pinterest and messaging service Snapchat. — Pinterest's round of $225 million at a $3.8 billion valuation …

More: Dalton Caldwell and PandoDaily

Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:

Snapchat looking to raise up to $200M, declined more than $1B bid by Facebook

More: Business Insider, TechCrunch, Mashable, VatorNews, PhoneArena, Gigaom, Softpedia News, The Next Web, AllThingsD, Forbes, Betabeat and socalTECH.com

Tweets: @danprimack and @evelynrusli

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