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I’m always skeptical of articles and posts I read on April 1, for obvious reasons. Sometimes they look plausible enough to pull you in, and this year I decided to share some of the April Fool’s posts I’ve particularly enjoyed this morning.

Google, of course, had to have some fun with us by introducing Google Nose. Really, “Photo, auditory, olfactory sensory convergence?” Try saying that three times fast!

Ron Charles, from The Washington Post, gives us “Apple Letters,” Apple’s latest patent. After patenting the page turn, there wasn’t much left.

I decided to wait a few days before writing about Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads. I wanted to let the dust settle before weighing in with my own opinion. Now that I've had some time to mull it over, here's what I think: This has the potential to be a game-changer that could be the next, and possibly final, nail in the coffins of other ebook retailers...but only if Amazon actually does something with the Goodreads platform.

As I read Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead," I nodded so hard that I worried my neck would sprain. I noticed after a while that the highlight function on my Kindle was turning every page fully yellow. The takeaway? Succeeding in business—whether that business is a blog, the PTA, or being COO of Facebook—is hard, and nobody can do everything right. But you can try, and you can remain a human being while doing it. My own mom was a classic '70s feminist…

And the phablet explosion continues with Amazon likely to be the latest entrant. The online retail giant will soon release its phablet version that new reports said will begin selling by June 2013 at starting price of $US100.
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The Amazon smartphone debut seeks to hit it big, at least on the screen size department, which according to DigiTimes will measure 4.7-inch, upgrading from the company's earlier plan of 4.3-inch.

Print media is patient zero in the ongoing saga of “disrupted by digital,” an unstoppable force that has decimated one time toll road businesses like newspapers, and is threatening to squeeze out the last breaths of magazine and book publishers.

That this occurs at a time when physical bookstores are also under assault is hardly a coincidence given the tight links between publishers and bookstores on book distribution, discovery and monetization. The brutal reality is that when an industry is disrupted, the entire ecosystem feels the pain.

Update: An Amazon spokesperson says that there is no $99 Kindle HD in the works. "It's not happening," a spokesperson told BusinessInsider. "We are already at the lowest price points possible for that hardware."

Original story: Amazon is plotting to undercut all its tablet competitors with a $99 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, according to sources speaking to TechCrunch Wednesday. The tablet will reportedly be an update from the current version offered for $199, but some specs like screen resolution and the processor make will carry over.

It’s easy enough to understand why Curious George books are first grade fare and why Camus is often saved for the 12th grade. But what about all the books in between?

For the most part, teachers and literacy experts are the ones charged with considering sentence complexity, word difficulty, themes and other characteristics to judge the readability of text. But by turning over much of that analysis to algorithms, startup Unbound Concepts believes it can not only assess more text with more granularity, it can individualize education for K-12 students and…

Sonnet Media recently launched pubspring.us, the online home of the PubSpring author platform. pubspring.us features a digest of content from authors on the PubSpring network, information on working with Sonnet Media, and more. Sonnet Media is a digital consultancy that has designed and developed websites for authors, publishers and others for nearly a decade. Past clients include HarperCollins Publishers, New Directions Publishing,  New Yorker staff writer David Grann, Pulitzer Prize winner Lorraine Adams, and the novelist James Ellroy.

Bud Parr, president of Sonnet Media, says “The PubSpring platform is a natural extension of our work with publishers and authors at Sonnet Media.  Over the years, we have identified the very specific needs of authors challenged with finding their audience, and with the move by publishers to connect with readers online.”

Arrived in Austin late Saturday night in time for a beautiful, noisy thunderstorm—a sparkling deluge that soaked the parched earth and was welcomed joyously by the grateful natives. It left behind a clear blue sky and a cheerful sun blazing benignly over all these tens of thousands of folks who have flocked to town to grab and probe at the newest and coolest, to wait in line and dash from session to session, to be in the know and be able to say we heard it here first and then to go back to their respective somewheres enriched and inspired.

Truly it is too much to take in at once.

Google is prepping a shopping service competitor to Amazon Prime, reported TechCrunch Tuesday. Named Google Shopping Express, the service will undercut Amazon in price to bring customers expedited delivery on orders for goods placed online from retailers...