VatorNews - #Amazon is retail king, reaching 1 in 5 Web users

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but while Borders is scrambling to shed its dead weight of inventory by September, its clearance prices are still higher than Amazon’s. It’s sad, really. Sure, I can go grab a book from borders for 30% off the retail price, or I can just order it from Amazon for a dollar less and save myself the hassle of pushing my way through throngs of suburban yuppies in fanny packs.

And this, my friends, is why Amazon is the indomitable king of retail—both online and off. One in five Internet users worldwide visited an Amazon site in the month of June, making Amazon the most visited retail property on the Web with 282 million visitors, according to new data released by comScore.

Oh Look, The Publishing Industry Is Growing In The Digital Age As Well | Techdirt

For all the stories of doom and gloom in various entertainment industry segments due to 'piracy,' the deeper you look, the more you realize that each of these areas seems to be growing quite nicely, contrary to what's being claimed. Remember last week, when we showed the US Chamber of Commerce's propaganda video in favor of the PROTECT IP Act, in which various artists claimed that their industries were being 'hurt' by internet piracy? It included clips of the author Tracy Deebs (who also goes by the name Tracy Wolff), claiming that 'piracy' had hurt the publishing industry badly and suggesting that she might lose her deal because book publishers don't believe she can sell enough books.

Well, tragically for Deebs/Wolff, the actual data suggests she and the US Chamber of Commerce are totally full of it. FormerAC points us to some new reports showing that the publishing industry is growing thanks to the rise of digital:

BookStats, a comprehensive survey conducted by two major trade groups that was released early Tuesday, revealed that in 2010 publishers generated net revenue of $27.9 billion, a 5.6 percent increase over 2008. Publishers sold 2.57 billion books in all formats in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008.