[bowerbird]

jswolfe said:
> But, remember, we HAVE seen Kindle Edition on Amazon's website.
> Granted it was pulled. But it was there.
> So that's Amazon helping to keep the rumors alive.

again, credulity is strained. do you think they did that _on_purpose_.

in order "to keep the rumors alive"?

do you think these "rumors and speculation" do amazon any good?

seriously?

they don't need your "help" if/when they want to get public notice.
they have a very big p.r. budget, and are not lacking in page-views.

indeed, if there is any one company that _could_ release a niche gadget
a few weeks before christmas and still have a chance of having it catch,
it would be amazon. but let me tell you, as plainly and clearly as i can,
that you are not helping them. on the contrary, you're _hurting_ them,
by making it appear that they have made promises that they never made,
by making it appear that products they have not even yet _announced_
are _late_ coming to market. this is not good for them. not good at all.
you don't need to be a genius to figure out they don't want you to do it.
they want you to _stop_.

unless you are meeting _personally_ with someone from amazon
-- as i expect brad stone of the new york times _might_ have --
to get your "leak" from them directly, i would suppose that amazon
doesn't really want, or need, your "help" in spreading such "leaks"...

***

nate said:
> As the chief rumor-monger, I have said nothing about Amazon
> possibly executing a FUD campaign. I have not been doing disinformation.

i think it was clear that robert nagle kicked off the latest "rumor"
-- i put "rumor" in quotes because it doesn't even have enough
juice left in it to earn _that_ title any more -- and besides all that,
i'm not singling out any individuals. not per se. there's a vicious
circle of people here -- david rothman, brad stone for the n.y. times,
engadget, ars technica, mobileread, and a few others -- who've been
"using" each other as "sources" in what's become a big echo-chamber.

and _somebody_ has to call you on this massive misinformation...
somebody has to break this vicious circle, at some point inside of it.

and i would _hope_ you'd be responsible enough to do it yourselves.
and i must say i was encouraged by a lot of the skepticism expressed.
(but discouraged that it seemed to be directed at _amazon_ instead of
the _real_ perpetrators of this misinformation.)

then here it was, one day after we could officially say "you were wrong",
and the spin cycle was set into motion again. i would be embarrassed
to repeat my last error _immediately_, but some people have no shame.
as i said, they even act like _they_ were the duped party. what a sham.


> I have only stated the information that I have found online,
> and some guesses I have made about that information.

to me, it shows you do not know how to evaluate the _trustworthiness_
of the information that you "have found online". to me, it's no "defense"
when you repeat unfounded speculation under the banner of "speculation".
quote some sources, so we know who is responsible, so when their reports
turn out to have been incorrect, we can make adjustments to the credibility.
and, for all i know, you've done that. again, this is not directed at anyone
in particular, except for robert nagle, and i already explained about him...

(and then, of course, rothman quoted nagle, without really quoting him,
just using the "speculation" word, without any specific attribution to it,
so that then nagle could turn around and make an attribution to teleread.
it's dirty "journalism". it's an echo-chamber. it's dishonest. it's a lie.)

and nagle and rothman do this quite a bit. this is not the first time.
it's not even the 10th time.

and because of that, i know i'm not gonna get them to stop. but
maybe, just maybe, i can make robert look at what he actually said,
in that post up there, and maybe he'll realize how silly it all sounds.


> Yes, I was wrong. I helped create the hype and then got swept up in it.

good. it's really great to see that you can admit you made a mistake.


> But you have no right to verbally spank me for my errors.
> You are not a moderator here (thank God),
> you are not my boss, and you are not my Mom.

you're right. i'm just a person who cares about _the_truth_.

and a person who cares about _electronic-books_. and a person
who has seen that cause _damaged_, and damaged _repeatedly_,
by people who -- for whatever reason -- engage in "speculation".

to the point where i feel it _necessary_ -- even at the cost of
having insulting accusations levied that i'm not being "polite" --
to address one group of people (among many) doing this damage.

***

natch said:
> Just be respectful about it, is all.

there's absolutely nothing about this whole scenario that i _respect_.

you reap what you sow. when you engage in "rumors and speculation",
and they come out wrong, over and over and over again, and you _still_
continue to engage in those _exact_same_ "rumors and speculation" --
and even act like you are the aggrieved party who has been lied to --
then you've _sacrificed_ any shred of "respect" you could've expected...

(and i don't mean _you_ in particular, i mean everyone who does that.
if the shoe fits, wear it.)

i'm more than willing to grant everyone a generous share of respect.

but if they're not going to take that respect seriously, why should i?

i don't think _you_ are showing much "respect" for my deep belief that
what is being done is causing serious damage to the cause of e-books.

at least have the decency to _acknowledge_ it _could_ be a bad thing.

or make the argument that what is said here has no importance because
nobody reads it or believes it anyway. or _something_ other than a crude
accusation that i'm not being "respectful". because that's just ad hominem.


> We do have a bit to go on with the Kindle, in addition to the "Kindle Edition"
> spotted on Amazon which JSWolf mentioned, we also have the documentation
> that Amazon submitted to the FCC.

i don't think you understand.

i'm not _questioning_ that amazon is going to release an e-book machine.
for heaven's sake, they sell books, and it's perfectly obvious to everyone that
books will _eventually_ move largely to digital form, so it would be ridiculous
to assert that amazon has no intentions of being anything but a big part of that.

and i _certainly_ don't suggest they aren't doing any _research_ in that sphere.
it would be suicide for them not to do that. that f.c.c. filing might well have
been a part of an overall campaign to establish dates for patent purposes, etc.

i don't even take issue with the report -- was it from charlie stoss? -- that
one publisher told one author that amazon made a big push for mid-october.

what i _do_ take issue with is the constant repetition of that date in the blog
echo-chamber as if it was some _fact_ that was carved in stone, in spite of the
_obvious_ elephant in the room, which was that amazon itself had said nothing.

i mean, seriously, didn't you all think that was kind of strange?

believe me, once this project starts getting ready to drop, there will be
all kinds of pre-push preparations that will lead to all kinds of "leaks".

and then amazon will announce it _well_in_advance_ of the actual sale,
just like jobs made a 6-month pre-announcement on sales of the iphone.

this is _not_ the kind of product that you just _dump_ on the marketplace...
this is the kind of gadget for which you need to prep people's expectations.
you have to tell them all kinds of nice-sounding gee-whiz stuff to make 'em
_want_ to buy this newfangled product. you've got to insulate the image, so
-- as will probably be the case -- when the negatives start cascading in from
real-world people using the machine for real-world purposes in the real-world,
the image of the product is able to withstand the buffeting.

if you don't do this pre-conditioning, the machine will get very few initial sales
-- it'll just make a thump in the market, and the vacuum will be embarrassing --
and the few sales you _do_ make will result in bad press that sinks future sales.
and then you've got a big turkey on your hands. and the cause of e-books will
suffer _another_ big setback, like the dozens it has already been subjected to...

but what you're doing here? you're just messing up people's expectations badly.
you are making amazon's job harder to keep those expectations within bounds.

heck, you're even messing with your _own_ expectations. you repeated all this
"speculation" so frequently that you actually came to _believe_it_! yourselves!
when it didn't pan out, you were _disappointed_. you were _angry_at_amazon_.
because they were "duping" you. doing "disinformation" on you. yeah, right...
you duped yourselves. you did a con job on yourselves. and you believed it...
and now you'll tell me that i'm being "rude" for pointing out these simple facts.


> Let me also point out that for the most part, folks around here are pretty careful
> about stating when they're speculating, and about pointing out things as rumors
> when they are. If other sites choose to ignore those qualifiers and treat as fact
> what has been expressly presented as rumor or speculation ... I'm at a loss as to
> how we can stop them.

well, i can give you some ideas. first and foremost, you can contact them
and point out that they have failed to communicate your careful qualifiers.

you can tell them the exact same thing that i've told you here, which is that
communicating these rumors as fact, or even merely repeating them too often
under the banner of "speculation", does _real_damage_ to the cause of e-books.

next, if they keep on making the same mistake, draw attention to their speculation.
label it as such. stand out as a beacon of truth in the world of electronic-books...
believe me, there's a need for it. there is _so_ much hype and spin, it's incredible.
it would take an army of fact-checkers just to keep david rothman's blog in line...

because, i'll tell you, all these lies and hype do _not_ do good. they do _harm_...


> If we didn't discuss rumors, we wouldn't have much to talk about, now would we?

actually, i think you would. there are a lot of things happening in the real-world
which -- if you treated them with the _respect_ that real-world things deserve --
would likely be treated as far more important than they are now, when they have to
"compete" against the vapor products that keep getting reported so breathlessly...

because vapor products _never_ have any flaws.


> If you're getting a belly full of the Kindle business (can't say as I blame you),
> then let it be for a while. There are a number of topics/threads I habitually avoid
> because I'm tired of the discussions that seem to just go round and round
> without getting anywhere new. Nothing wrong with ignoring it if you'd prefer.

no. i hate _all_ the hype. all the speculation. all the unfounded "optimism".

because all of it turns people away from what we have right here, right now...

it makes them think that the e-book revolution is "around the next corner",
instead of right in front of us right now. did you notice the rise of the blog?
did you realize blogs are e-books, in serial form, being delivered here, now?

and do you understand that this is important because -- almost invisibly, and
without any real effort -- chains of corporate-publisher-gatekeepers were shed?

do you understand that mobileread -- and sites like it -- are the new publishers?

maybe you do, maybe you don't, but i can tell you for sure that most people don't.

because they still think of "publishing" as the tool that makes paper-books or
paper-newspapers, they still don't really have any clue that the world has been
turned completely upside down. they've been _told_ that it "will" happen, and
they "expect" it to happen, but they're still _waiting_ for it to happen, because
they think it depends on e-ink, or wi-fi book-downloads, or the amazon kindle.

it's so _funny_ to me when people say "e-books will arrive when the new york
publishing houses get on-board", because they seem to have no understanding
that when e-books arrive the new york publishing houses will become extinct...


> But calling folks liars

people have said things that turned out not to be true. that is a fact.
whether that makes 'em "liars" or not, well, that's not for me to judge.
i'd much rather think that they were just seriously misinformed, and
that -- once they realized that -- they would become a bit cautious.


> and demanding/ordering everyone to shut up about it
> isn't likely to work, and it really is a bit on the rude side.

i'm not in a position to "demand" or "order everyone" to "shut up".

i _suggested_ that, in order to avoid getting egg all over their face _again_,
as has happened quite a few times previously, that they adopt of strategy of
depending on _amazon_ to announce what and when _amazon_ will do things.

and if you kindly look back, you'll notice that i even prefaced my suggestion
with the word "please"...

so, you can take offense at that suggestion if you want, but it's not "rude"...
(and if you _do_ take offense, it'd make me wonder why you were so inclined.)

-bowerbird