Amazon.com is starting to get a bit of a PR black eye when it comes to the sales tax issue, and a new Web site called “Drop a Dime on Amazon” surely won’t help matters. Created by The Alliance for Main Street Fairness, the site encourages Amazon employees, vendors and concerned citizens to “anonymously share stories and thoughts about the extreme lengths Amazon is undertaking to exploit the sales tax loophole, hurting jobs and small businesses.” As we’ve noted, Amazon is spending millions of dollars to fight a new sales tax collection policy in California.
A fascinating interactive look at the 313 patents from Steve Jobs, compiled by The New York Times.
How a photographer used GadgetTrak’s Camera Serial Search to recover $9,000 worth of camera equipment.
John Connors of Ignition Partners, who sits on the board of Nike with Apple’s Tim Cook was interviewed by BusinessWeek about the CEO transition at Apple. “The good Lord created one Steve Jobs, but he only created one Phil Knight and Nike is still an enormous success,” said Connors, the former Microsoft chief financial officer. “I am sure the world will see in the next several years that Tim is a very uniquely gifted guy and Apple will be wildly successful under his leadership.”
RealNetworks has sued a 26-year-old Dutch man for linking to a free software program called Real Alternative, which competes with its own Real Player software, reports Computerworld.
Tweet, social media and crowdsourcing are among the 150 words that Merriam Webster has added to its dictionary.
RPI, a maker on-demand personalized photo books, greeting cards and stationery, has acquired Paro Group BV of the Netherlands. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the combined company will have 180 employees.
The worst wireless acquisitions of all time (including Microsoft’s buy of Danger), according to FierceWireless.
SEOMoz CEO Rand Fishkin is still on the fence about taking venture capital, but the Seattle entrepreneur has taken readers of his blog on a fascinating journey into the mind of an entrepreneur who is weighing outside capital. Xconomy’s Curt Woodward reports, calling it the “most transparent fundraising saga ever.”
Seattle cloud storage startup Symform has reduced pricing of its service, dropping the price to $10 per month or $100 per year.
PopCap just released Peggle HD for the iPad at a special introductory price of $2.99.
SEC filing watch: Mogo Design, a Seattle startup led by Paige Clark, has raised $400,000. More on Mogo here.
Headline of the day comes via Publisher’s Weekly: “Could Amazon take down The New Yorker?”
