All Things Digital

BoomTown is back from a seasick cruise vacation in the wilds of Alaska–official sightings: lots of icebergs, 16 glaciers, a passel of jellyfish and starfish, four lumberjacks, three orcas, two seals, one otter, no moose or bears and, yep, one Republican Vice Presidential candidate’s lovely house in Juneau–just in time for school.

Or, more precisely, a little schooling for some of the tech companies that I cover in a mildly obsessive-compulsive manner.

All of them, I predict, are in for a news-filled fall.

That’s right, more Facebook employee hijinks! More BMOC-battling between Microsoft and Google! More Yahoo trying its hardest not to look like so much of a loser (Keep trying, Jerry–release your inner head cheerleader!).

Thus, here is a rundown of what to expect and also what some of those companies need to focus on over the next several months.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 4 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Amazon’s President, CEO, Chairman and, oh yes, Founder, Jeff Bezos. (I posted one video part of the discussion with Bezos every day this week, starting Monday and concluding today.)

The e-commerce giant seems to be firing on all cylinders of late, along with making some innovative moves, such as the recent introduction of its e-book reader, the Kindle.

In this video, Bezos takes questions from the audience about digital rights management and other issues about the Kindle, and about streaming videos.

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Amazon’s President, CEO, Chairman and, oh yes, Founder, Jeff Bezos. (I’m posting one video part of the discussion with Bezos every day this week, starting Monday and concluding tomorrow.)

The e-commerce giant seems of be firing on all cylinders of late, along with making some innovative moves, such as the recent introduction of its e-book reader, the Kindle.

In this video, Bezos talks about the consumer digital download business, including competition with Apple’s iTunes, Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Web services business and the impact of the economic slowdown of the online retailer.

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Amazon.com’s (AMZN) President, CEO, Chairman and, oh yes, Founder, Jeff Bezos. (I will post one video part of the discussion with Bezos every day this week, starting yesterday and concluding Thursday.)

The e-commerce giant seems of be firing on all cylinders of late, along with making some innovative moves, such as the recent introduction of its e-book reader, the Kindle.

In this video, Bezos talks more about the Kindle and its features, including what it takes to make a great digital book reading experience, as well the the future of the music and video download business.

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Amazon.com’s President, CEO, Chairman and, oh yes, Founder, Jeff Bezos. (I will post one video part of the discussion with Bezos every day this week starting today and concluding Thursday.)

The e-commerce giant seems of be firing on all cylinders of late, along with making some innovative moves, such as the recent introduction of the e-book reader, the Kindle.

In this video, Bezos talks about why he has moved Amazon (AMZN) beyond the online retail business and the development of the Kindle and e-books.

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I co-hosted our annual holiday gadget fest for the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.

Now in its fifth year, it was called “Making a List: The Fifth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” and took place in Palo Alto, Calif. Our guest were Marissa Mayer of Google and tech consultant Greg Harper.

Walt and I typically show off several devices we think are interesting and try to identify some important trends.

Here’s a video of Walt, Greg and Marissa at the event:

(I still am having problems with the Brightcove player, so I uploaded the video to YouTube.)

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Below is a video interview with Amazon’s majordomo Jeff Bezos conducted by The Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Trachtenberg about the new $400 Kindle wireless electronic-book reader that the online retailer unveiled last week.

So far the reviews have been less than whelming–too clunky, too pricey, too wonky, to name a few of the complaints–but it’s interesting that tech types keep at their seemingly futile effort to replace the very useful device known as the book.

At D4, for example, Sony head Howard Stringer (pictured below) declared its $350 eReader was going to be a big hit. It was not. (Well, to be fair, he did not give an exact timetable on the success of the gadget, but we’re still waiting.)

So far, the meek little book still seems to be the winner over all e-book challengers.

Why is that, given the relentless digitization of every bit of content on the planet and the inevitable march in that direction?

I’d say it’s pretty simple. Books work fine–they are portable, cheap, easy to read, their batteries never die and they’re kind of pretty.

The pluses of an electronic version of a book are not so much of a plus. It’s portable, but not more so than a book. It’s expensive. It’s complex to figure out and sometimes not so easy to read. Its batteries always die. Also, let’s be honest: Not so pretty.

And, though you can hold more books on them–the big selling point–who usually is reading more than one or two books at a time? The same is true for searchability–unless it is a textbook, I can’t think of a time when I really wanted to search a book.

Still, the efforts to storm the castle of reading continues, as you will see here:

As a Thanksgiving special, an extra cartoon this week from the cartoon dudette and dude–Nitrozac and Snaggy–over at Geek Culture’s Joy of Tech, whose work will be appearing more regularly on this site, since we all could use a good laugh.

Today, they make kindling out of Amazon’s new electronic book-reading device!

Click on the image to make it bigger: