Recent Stories with tag amazon

WikiLeaks' Twitter stream

Already someone with a lively sense of irony has visited Amazon's listing for the book The Pentagon Papers, writing:

Amazon pulled Wikileaks from their site because it represented classified government documents. So what is the Pentagon Papers still doing on this site? Oh right, Amazon wasn't around in 1971 to cave in to pressure from right wing politicians to betray the First Amendment right to publish classified materials that have been leaked by others.

TechFlash reports that Pentagon Papers-leaker Daniel Ellsberg himself is calling upon Amazonians to get into the transparency habit:

This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear—and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses—to leak that information.

At issue is Amazon's claim that because WikiLeaks violated their terms of service hosting agreement by posting material they didn't own, Amazon was forced to terminate their hosting services--that is, it wasn't in response to governmental suasion.  The Stranger's Paul Constant isn't buying it: "They need to issue a brief, clear statement on their information policies so consumers know where they stand with Amazon. If they're not going to fight for their customers' rights, their customers need to know that."

Amazon's hosting of the material aside, Salon's Glenn Greenwald can't understand why Tableau, a Seattle interactive graphics software company, also agreed to pull WikiLeaks charts in response to a request by Senator Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "These charts contained no classified information whatsoever, and disclosed nothing about the content of the cables," writes Greenwald. (See an example here.)

Amazon has reported net sales were up 39 percent in the third quarter of 2010, and that Kindle sales were.... Well, there are no numbers attached, but the general impression is that they're selling Kindles at a fine rate, and proud we are of all of them. Interestingly, while media sales were up 14 percent, sales of electronics and other merchandise grew 68 percent.

Amazon may be the leader in online retail, but Forbes wonders how good the investment angle is, given Amazon's legendarily razor-thin margins. One impact on those margins, as TechFlash reports, is that Amazon has increased its employee headcount by 44 percent from last year. (An earlier story noted that "Fulfillment costs in Q3 were up nearly 46 percent from the year-ago quarter, to $680 million.")

Amazon moved into its South Lake Union offices earlier this year, and now the area is full of hustle and bustle--forget a quick bite to eat at Blue Moon Burgers if it's anywhere around noon. Back on Beacon Hill, the ex-Amazon Tower is forlornly waiting for its lease to expire next May; in three years, nobody the size of Amazon has come knocking to rent the 16 floors.

"In its first quarter in the market, Apple's iPad shipments exceeded the combined volume of nearly 40 eBook reader suppliers with a 3.3 to 2.4M unit advantage," says IMS Research's Quarterly eBook and iPad Shipment and Forecast Service.

Their press release goes on to mention that eBook readers still made a good showing, with volume up 28 percent quarter over quarter; Amazon gained share in the market, along with Barnes & Noble, but still refuses to release sales figures on its Kindle.

You get a sense of the market differential, though, when IMS Research mentions they expect Apple to ship over 15 million iPads in 2010, and all eBook readers to total 13 million. Next year they predict greater separation, with over twice the iPads sold as eBook readers.

Expect to see touchscreens and color in eBooks sometime in 2011, as manufacturers try to counter iPad popularity.

Mayor McGinn announced that he'd talked the unions representing city employees into letting go of their two-percent COLA; instead they get 0.6 percent. The city's projected deficit for 2010-12 has grown by $11 million, to $67 million, since April. That kind of pressure has led the city to blackmailpressure MOHAI into giving up relocation funds won from the state, with MOHAI reaching DEFCON 1 ("We'll close, we swear it!") in short order.

Boeing got local-source religion. Microsoft worked on cementing their image as the Evil Empire. Amazon may have leaked Office for Mac 2011's ship date. Starbucks decided drive-through customers were really thirsty.

Cliff Mass says the only question is how strong our La Niña winter will be--cold and wet, or colder and snowier. While the Howard Hanson Dam situation has improved, "Now is not the time to relax," says King County Council's Julia Patterson. Wet weather isn't good news for residents of Redmond's mold-infested Riverwalk condos, but stay tuned--I hear the cavalry may be coming.

Around the neighborhoods, Capitol Hill residents learned they have deer and a start-up incubator. TechFlash took a tour of Belltown's PopCap Games. Eastlake's Floating Homes tour is Sunday, Sept. 12. "Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board voted to nominate the community-center building and steam plant at the 580-unit Yesler Terrace public-housing project for landmark designation."... (more)

Hey, kids! If you are enrolled* in a college or university (*must be taking at least one course), and have an .edu email address and an Amazon account, you're eligible for a year's worth of Amazon Prime shipping for free. Here is the full explanation and here is the TOS.

When you sign up to become an Amazon Student, they'll ask you for your college's name and your major. In return you get no-minimum-order, two-day shipping for free--one-day shipping is just $3.99. You also get, free, "e-mail alerts for exclusive deals and promotions." How sweet is that.

TechFlash sees afterimages of Webvan in Amazon's new Tote delivery service, but I can't help thinking of the gold standard: Kozmo.com couriers delivering lunch half an hour after I ordered it. Tote won't be quite that fast, but from a cost perspective, Amazon has one-upped Kozmo: the twice-weekly Tote service is free, and there's no minimum spend. (You do have to complete your order two days before the next delivery date.)

If you order something from Amazon and you'd like them to deliver it the next time they're delivering in your neighborhood (the delivery days are zip code-specific), they'll truck it on over. The first zip to get Tote is 98112. The Tote bags are weather-resistant and reusable, and one way you can reuse them is to return items if there's any problem. Get the Tote FAQs here. (Perhaps you'd like to order a discounted Kindle? Even the Kindle DX has a lower price.)

Meanwhile, today inaugurates 1) a City of Seattle ordinance mandating that all single-use food service packaging at restaurants and grocery stores be either recyclable or compostable, and 2) a fully operational battlestar Starbucks recycling and composting program that incorporates front-of-store waste, too (i.e., there are more bins out front).

You've probably seen evidence of this, since Starbucks has been rolling out the new program at its 90 Seattle stores over the past month. The city's goal is to keep 6,000 tons of packaging and compostable waste out of landfills each year. Starbucks' goal is to get front-of-store recycling into all company-owned locations by 2015. (Their paper cups will head back to the plant for a second life as paper napkins.)... (more)

First it was the Kindle. After Barnes & Noble knocked the Nook down, Amazon cut the price for the basic Kindle model (not the DX) from $259 to $189, which analysts nervously noted had to be close to Amazon's cost of production. Will they make it up on the back-end, in e-books?

Now it's Microsoft's Kin. Verizon has "quietly," says PC Mag, dropped the price of the Kin One to $29.99 with a two-year contract. A Kin Two is now $49.99. (Previously the devices were $99.99 and $49.99, respectively.) So far there are over 30 stories on this quiet price cut.

Starbucks and Boeing don't seem to sell anything that begins with "kin," but Nordstrom is selling the Kinerase "Ultimate Repair" Moisture System (a $146 value!) for just $95. It's uncanny.

Trans Alta's Centralia electricity-generating coal plant, our local Smaug the dragon, is the state's top CO2 emitter, pumping out 11 percent of the state's total emissions. It's also tops in mercury and nitrogen oxide. And despite gas-powered plants increasing the power of our electric blanket, the state, led by Governor Gregoire, isn't pushing to quickly decommission the plant or up its scrubbing power. "How's that hopey, changey thing workin' out for ya?"

If Cliff Mass is right about another cold trough heading our way, we'll still be running our electric heaters in late May. If we still live indoors. Nationally, more of the safest mortgage holders were losing their homes to foreclosure (almost 40 percent of new foreclosures in Q1), while in Seattle, home depreciation is expected to continue through this year. That might sound grim, but what it means, graphs the Seattle Bubble, is that home prices are coming back into line with median income.

TechFlash reports that six months after their marriage, Amazon and Zappos are still using separate bank accounts. Nordstrom is doing so well, they increased their dividend. "If MSFT is a patent alley thug, then SFDC is a crack addict cat burglar." Starbucks is doing so well, they spent $180,000 in Q1 on lobbying. The Port of Seattle seems to be weathering the economic doldrums pretty well.... (more)

"VERY URBAN" is the title of this shot of the formerly-known-as-WaMu tower by photocoyote.

It's technical, and doesn't sound like much--a U-value of 0.35 for window systems in commercial buildings--but it's got the architects at at least one major Seattle firm, Callison, and the people at another company you may have heard of--Vulcan?--riled up. The change comes as the city of Seattle adopts the 2009 Washington State Energy Code (WSEC), and adds its own tweaks, before "going live" with it on July 1 of this year.

While the state code allows up to 40 percent of a commercial building to be "glazing area" (i.e., windows), Seattle would apply more stringent heat-loss requirements to buildings with 30 to 40 percent glazing area: a U-value of 0.35.

A low U-value tells you that a window (or the whole window system, including the sash and frame) provides greater insulation, keeping heat from traveling in or out. In commercial real estate, this can mean substantial savings in heating and cooling costs over the life of the building. 

The DPD's John Hogan says that on average window area makes up 25 percent of the gross wall area in non-residential construction, so 30 to 40 percent is on the high side. (The optimum for energy efficiency, he says, is 15 to 30 percent.) Thus, the lower target U-value of 0.35 for the view-tastic model.

Vulcan's Hamilton Hazelhurst says the lower U-value represents a "huge financial cost that would be impossible to justify in terms of cost/benefit." As an instance, he points out that the Amazon SLU project has a U-value of 0.38. Doesn't seem like much of a difference. But Hazelhurst claims that to achieve the one percent in energy efficiency you'd get from moving to 0.35, the payback on the cost of $1.2 million would take 387 years. He also says, chillingly, if the code update had been in effect, it's likely Amazon would have built elsewhere.

UPDATE: Hazelhurst adds more detail--Amazon had specifically requested operable windows, but "the minimum U-values [for opening windows] currently available from manufacturers is 0.45." So Amazon would have been faced with a choice: windows that open, or SLU. Given Amazon's keen interest in operable windows, it's not clear whether they would be SLU tenants, or ensconced on the Eastside.... (more)

BNET is doing a series on ten "boom towns" across the nation where job growth is predicted to enter the double-digit range between 2008 and 2018. Jobs of the future, they say, will go "to the cities with the industries and the entrepreneurial incentives in place to support a highly educated, tech-savvy workforce."

Seattle makes that boom town list, with a 12 percent increase. We're "building on past successes":

For decades, it spawned companies that grew into job-creation machines--and stuck around the area with those jobs: Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Starbucks, Costco, Expediters International, and even retail stalwart Nordstrom, which opened its first store there at the beginning of the 20th century.

While not free of the scent of PR puffery, this is based partly on Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, with a side bet on demographic trends: right now, the largest two age groups are 50-year-olds and 20-year-olds. The hypothesis is that 50s set will come to Seattle for the pre-retirement lifestyle, while the 20-somethings will flock to the UW.

Before you yawn, and produce a thick volume of past "boom towns of the future" that are still anxiously awaiting the railroad to arrive, consider this rundown of quarterly results:

• Starbucks beat analysts' expectations
• Amazon's sales soared
• Microsoft set a revenue record
• Boeing's profit margins are up

And Nordstrom had strong March sales and Costco is increasing its cash dividend. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes Seattle seem like its own little business oasis. 

Seattle is the #2 big city for people with asthma, says Health magazine, thanks in part to our 2008 heat wave pollution, which meant the city had to work even harder to maintain clean air. And Bicycling magazine rated us the #4 best city for bicycling, after Minneapolis, Portland, and Boulder. That's thanks to our bike master plan.

Costco and Nordstrom had a good March, while Boeing reported almost an eleven percent drop in first quarter deliveries compared to last year. Starbucks was trying to get us drunk and show us a movie. Techflash reported on a UW study claiming 8.4 percent of Washington jobs rely on Microsoft. In Olympia, a sales tax increase didn't pass muster, but mass-market beer got tagged. The City Council may be near agreeing with Mayor McGinn for the first time.

Down in South Lake Union, Amazon started moving into its new digs. One Seattle real estate investor bought an infamous Orange County resort, while on top of Queen Anne, a developer put a substantial chunk of property up for sale. Over on Capitol Hill, a protest against police brutality got a little out of hand, and Sen. Patty Murray visited Cupcake Royale. In Ballard, a car accident claimed three young lives. My Wallingford was gearing up for work on the Aurora Bridge. As usual, nothing happened in Wedgwood.... (more)

For more in-depth analysis, here's the Seattle Times Amazon story. And here's the PostGlobe City Books post.

Compared to the news from Haiti, the local stories feel a little trivial. But it's been a week of being overtaken by events.

Symetra's IPO got off well, and Starbucks got some mojo back, but the stock market as a whole had a terrible week. (Why? Bank trouble in big China.) Amazon announced developers can start writing Kindle apps. Adobe made tangential news when YouTube started using a non-Flash HTML5 video player. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has learned how to do life-saving things with stem cells from umbilical cord blood. For some reason I didn't know that bankruptcy-filing Taco Del Mar was headquartered in West Seattle.

Seattle's 9.2 percent unemployment is bad, but less than Washington's overall 9.5 percent unemployment.

Seattle Bubble reports that the state's chief economist says if real estate will rebound, it won't be until 2011. Commercial real estate would take longer. Arun Raha also pointed out that the problem with losing our smaller regional and community banks is that they provide credit to small businesses--small businesses that we're counting on create new jobs. Regulators seized Seattle's Evergreen Bank ($482 million in assets) on Friday and sold it to Umpqua Bank in Oregon.... (more)

A great international tragedy has unfolded this week. Of course I refer to the tribulations of Conan O'Brien, who may soon cruelly be forced to go from making an exorbitant amount of money to host a talk show on one national television network, to making an exorbitant amount of money to host a talk show on a different national television network. I have lost much sleep over this indignation. Oooh, Jay Leno, you make me SO MAD!

Image from a tee Rainn Wilson's auctioning off

Then there's this Haiti earthquake. Thousands suffer from lack of food, clean water, and medical treatment after the quake, hundreds more are buried under rubble. Many local organizations large and small are doing what they can to support the relief effort. Thought it might be worth showing who's doing what, bless them. This is not an exhaustive list, I certainly don't intend to exclude anyone, so if you know of any other events/contributions/whatever, please add them in the comments.

Of course, as an intelligent person, you will know that the best thing you can do, even better than reading this post, is to donate what you can right now. The Mobile Giving Foundation of Bellevue has created this list of organizations you can donate to from your phone. Okay, here's the promised list:

Microsoft: Has donated $1.25M in cash and in-kind support.

Amazon: Put a Haiti donations message and link on their home page.

Pearl Jam: Has created a suggested list of organizations to donate to.

Rainn Wilson: Is auctioning off memorabilia from The Office to support a favorite organization, Planting Peace.

Seattle Symphony: Will accept donations for Haiti relief at two upcoming community concerts.

Liberty on Capitol Hill: Buy their "Help Haiti" drink for $6, 100% of proceeds go to Haiti relief.... (more)

"Seattle fog" courtesy of The SunBreak Flickr pool's Simple Insomnia

It's cold and blustery outside, but Cliff Mass says we're going to stay dry for a few days, with only the possibility of fog. Personally, I'm all for fog. We don't get enough, in my book. If we do get a pea-souper, I welcome any and all fog photos to our SunBreak Flickr pool. Drop 'em in there--you know it's free to join, right?

I know it seems like Black Friday was just yesterday--and it was--but thanks to internet technology, TechFlash can report that Amazon gained significantly on WalMart, so far as Black Friday online traffic goes. Amazon's traffic jumped from a 9.6 percent share in '08 to 12.4 percent in '09. In other online news, the Seattle Public Schools new student assignment maps are up.

In news featuring guns, a Seattle attorney is suing the city for $1 in damages, after being told to leave the Southwest Community Center when he arrived with a permitted Glock. His principled stand suffers from the bad timing of fellow pro-gun Seattleites though.

Last night a man was shot to death near St. James Cathedral on First Hill, just a week after last week's First Hill shooting. And in South Seattle, a motorist had his tire shot out--a group of 10 to 15 teens may have been doing target practice with a .45 caliber handgun.

Here at The SunBreak this week, we talked over the Metro bus service restored by the King County Council, Seattle's parking fine increase, and the likelihood of getting mugged at a bus stop.

Seth NIT-picked Seattle U's basketball team and reviewed Ray Charles singing "Old Man River" (for as yet unknown reasons), and I went downtown to get an enhanced driver's license and shop for booze, which I realize are two things that do not go together. At the movies, Audrey pointed out that "nothing says Thanksgiving like Asian gore."

In H1N1 news, two weeks ago the swine flu vaccine arrived in King County and health professionals got first dibs. This week the vaccine was publicly available...but only for a few days, before supplies of the H1N1 vaccine ran out. Replenishments are on the way. President Obama has now declared the flu variant a national emergency--it's killed 1,000 people across the U.S. so far.

Twists in the race to be Mayor of Tunneltown this week: mayoral candidate Mike McGinn said he wouldn't seek to block deep-bore tunnel construction after all, and Joe Mallahan said he was okay with building it even if Seattle was solely on the hook for any cost overruns. WSDOT was accused of being "in love" with the deep-bore tunnel nyah nyah.

Books were big news: CHS provided a round-up of discussions about the Elliott Bay Book Company's potential move to Capitol Hill: Crosscut's Knute Berger and the Seattle Times' Jon Talton took the bird's-eye view of what the move says about Pioneer Square and Seattle itself.

Then the same week that Barnes & Noble launched the Nook, Amazon puffed up its chest, put the stock market on its back, and flew off in an up-and-to-the-right direction. Jeff Bezos ended the day worth over $2 billion more than when he woke up. Microsoft still lost money, but less than expected, and besides: Windows 7! TwitterBing!