Barnes and Nobles without a buyer

The future don't looks to bright for Barnes and Nobles at the moment. Founder and Chairman of Barnes and Nobles look at the digitization as a major challenge:

"According to Riggio: “Digital publishing and digital book-selling will soon become the most explosive development in the history of our industry and will sweep aside those who aren’t participating.”"

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22100.html

Does the internet make experts dumb?

Most people think that the Internet makes us smarter (65 % vs. 34 percent of Wall Stret Journals readers), but Andrew Keen seems to disagree in his book "The Cult of the Amateur". Now JP Rangaswami make a wonderful analysis which he states that the internet just makes experts looks dumber :-)

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/online-services-398/topics/internet-making-us-smarter-dumber

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Culture/dp/0385520808

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2010/08/22/does-the-web-make-experts-dumb/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ConfusedOfCalcutta+%28Confused+of+Calcutta%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

New important book

Barbara van Schewick has written a book that deserve attention:

http://ammori.org/2010/08/11/vanschewic/

More than 100 cubic feet archive goes open access

The Irving Louis Horowitz-Transaction Publishers Archives, 1939-2009 are now open access documenting development of the social sciences.

http://live.psu.edu/story/47470/rss13

Bill Gates with some good predictions

Bill Gates ask this question at Techonomy 2010 conference: "Who Needs a College Education When You Have the Web?" A good question, but the paradox is that the most important forces behind this opportunity is what he himself has spent most of his life to fight :-)

For background information behind that claim, I suggest Yochai Benkler "Wealth of Networks" that you can find here:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Table_of_Contents

This one is specifically good to explain the theory:
http://www.yale.edu/yalelj/112/BenklerWEB.pdf

http://www.dailytech.com/Bill+Gates+Who+Needs+a+College+Education+When+You+Have+the+Web/article19294.htm

Economics loosing focus on important things?

According to the blog "Economic Logic", Economics are not focusing enought on improving global welfare, but rather on academic "pissing contest".

http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2010/08/business-research-is-as-out-of-focus-as.html