Monday, May 05, 2008

Yahoo, More Writers, and the Pulitzer Board

I'm going to be pretty busy for the next four weeks and super-busy for the next two.

I thought about taking a break from blogging, but I've decided instead to direct you to interesting stories to read for yourself. We'll try this for a couple of days and see how it goes.

Microsoft and Yahoo
A lot happened with Yahoo and Microsoft in the last three days. The Wall Street Journal had a story on Friday anticipating Microsoft was going to go hostile. Instead, later that same day, they raised their offer for Yahoo in a effort to do a kinder, gentler takeover.

Then on Saturday, Microsoft issued a press release here indicating that they were withdrawing their offer.

The ball is back in Yahoo's court. Speculation is that the Yahoo stockholders--anticipating a deal--are going to be very, very unhappy with their CEO and Board of Directors.

Fewer Readers, More Books
Last Sunday, the New York Times had an article about the growing number of writers in today's world. Here's a paragraph:
In 2007, a whopping 400,000 books were published or distributed in the United States, up from 300,000 in 2006, according to the industry tracker Bowker, which attributed the sharp rise to the number of print-on-demand books and reprints of out-of-print titles. University writing programs are thriving, while writers’ conferences abound, offering aspiring authors a chance to network and “workshop” their work. The blog tracker Technorati estimates that 175,000 new blogs are created worldwide each day (with a lucky few bloggers getting book deals). And the same N.E.A. study found that 7 percent of adults polled, or 15 million people, did creative writing, mostly “for personal fulfillment.”

To read the whole article, go here.

How Do They Fill The Pulitzer Board Vacancies?
Editor & Publisher had an article on Thursday explaining how the Pulitzer Board fills its vacancies. Read it here.

1 comment:

Annette Lyon said...

Fascinating articles all. Thanks.