CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. made the comments as the No. 3 recording company reported a net loss for its fiscal first quarter, as a slight uptick in digital revenue failed to make up for falling CD sales.
Amazon.com Inc. was pitted in a pricing dispute with publisher Macmillan last week over e-books made available on Amazons Kindle e-book reader. Amazon typically sells e-books at a flat rate of $9.99, even for best-sellers and new releases, but Macmillan and other publishers believe that price is too low and threatens the value of books overall.
Amazon eventually agreed under pressure to raise the price [...]

Amazon.com temporarily stopped selling all Macmillan books to show the “seriousness of our disagreement,” Amazon.com said in a notice on its Web site yesterday. Macmillan, publisher of Elie Wiesels “Night” and Michael Cunninghams “The Hours,” proposed new prices for electronic books last week, Macmillan Chief Executive Officer John Sargent said in an e-mail to authors and agents.
“Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books,” Sargent said. “We clearly do not agree on how to get there.”
[...]

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said he was told Friday that its books would be removed from Amazon.com, as would e-books for Amazons Kindle e-reader. Books will be available on Amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said.
Sargent met with Amazon officials Thursday to discuss the publishers new pricing model for e-books. He wrote in a letter to Macmillan authors and literary agents Saturday that the plan would allow Amazon to make more money selling Macmillan books and that Macmillan would make less. He characterized the dispute as a disagreement over “the long-term viability and stability of the digital [...]

Sales may rise as much as 43 percent to $7 billion in the first quarter, more than last years 18 percent growth, the Seattle-based company said yesterday in a statement. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated sales of $6.42 billion.
Amazon.com, whose shares more than doubled last year, continues to top analysts estimates even though doubts remain about the strength of a rebound in U.S. consumer spending. Amazon.com gained market share over rivals as online spending outpaced sales at traditional retail stores during the holiday season, according [...]

Internet analysts at comScore Inc. expect online retail revenue to rise 3 percent to $28.8 billion for the months of November and December. That includes the Web sites of traditional retailers, such as Macys, but excludes auctions, travel and large corporate purchases.
Meanwhile, U.S. holiday retail sales - excluding online - are expected to drop 1 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation, the largest retail trade group.
Online estimates and data-gathering methods vary, but e-commerce analysts and Web retailers agree: This year cant possibly be as bad as last year, when the shock of the financial meltdown was [...]

The National Federation of the Blind planned to announce Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University wont consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.
Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they wont look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes to the device.
“These universities are saying, Our policy is nondiscrimination, so were not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against blind students,” said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation for [...]

The online retailer planned to unveil the system, known as Amazon PayPhrase, on Thursday.
Heres how it works. If you store a credit card number and shipping address with Amazon, you can elect to have that information represented by a short phrase and ID number. Then you can enter that phrase and PIN instead of giving a credit card and address to buy things on Amazon and other Web sites that accept this PayPhrase system.
Amazon says that approach is simpler than entering card numbers - and more flexible, because consumers can set up multiple phrases and ID numbers tied to the [...]

Amazon shares soared to an all-time high Friday after the Seattle-based online retailer stunned analysts and investors by reporting that third-quarter net income grew 68 percent - a clear sign that consumers are spending on Amazon, even though the economy is still stuttering.
“I think people are finding they want to start purchasing again,” Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said Friday. “Theres pent-up demand for this stuff, and the lions share is going to Amazon these days.”
Lindsay attributes growth partly to the demographics of Amazons customer base, which he believes has more money than the average U.S. consumer to spend on [...]

Amazon.com climbed as much as 15 percent to $107.90 in extended trading yesterday, after the worlds largest online retailer reported a 69 percent jump in profit and a 28 percent gain in revenue. The shares, up 82 percent this year, reached a split-adjusted record of $106.69 in December 1999.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, a former hedge fund vice president who started Amazon.com more than a decade ago, has expanded the sites array of products, pushed into international markets and introduced the Kindle digital reader. Amazon.coms growth [...]

The Seattle-based online retailer said Thursday that it will release an application called “Kindle for PC” in November. It will let you buy, download and read Kindle books on a Windows-based PC, regardless of whether you own a Kindle.
If you also own a Kindle, you can see any notes or highlights made on the e-reader.
Amazon will also keep track of where you are in a book, so you can stop reading on your PC and pick up at the same place on your Kindle.
If youre running Microsoft Corp.s new Windows 7 operating system and have a touch screen on your [...]