HMH Publishing sent us two copies of Stephen Baker's new book.

So I recently wrote an article for Memeburn about IBM’s supercomputer Watson and its victory on Jeopardy. You can find the article here. So, in the wake of the article, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing got in touch with us. Stephen Baker, an author and journalist made famous by his book The Numerati, has just published his new book Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machines and the Quest to Know Everything. They had noticed the article and thought we might be interested.

The Internet is a series of tubes... perfect to transfer money!

The market for digital content in South Africa is in a curious place at the moment. With just over 6 million Internet users in this country, and less than half being comfortable with using higher level web services, those who would buy digital content are barely numbered in the hundreds of thousands. At the same time, we watch as digital content is exploding throughout the developed world. As an example of this success, 27% of worldwide legitimate music sales are now online (according to the IFPI). That’s a $4.2 billion industry that has emerged in less than a decade. Apple’s iTunes Online Store is responsible for 70% of these sales (19% of worldwide music sales, through one online store). Online game and movie downloads are also gaining traction over physical sales. There seems little doubt that digital content is not only a growing industry, but one that will continue to grow and consume many other, traditionally physical, media.

Taking over the interwebs

In the October 2010 issue of Advantage magazine published an article by TRR’s Matthew Stone.

It’s the lure of the modern age. Any person, band or site can blow up in a matter of days, spreading like a virus across the Internet. It happens all the time. With social communities like Reddit, Digg and Facebook, there is no reason why any quirky song, video or site can’t transform into an overnight Internet-wide phenomenon.