AKSARBENT

SILICON VALLEY TECHNOLOGIST EXPLAINS WHY AMAZON.COM DIDN'T JUST HAVE A "GLITCH"

Mary Hodder's complete explanation is posted on TechCrunch.

...Amazon is using algorithms, which rely on their classification system, with various statistics like “Sales Rank” to rank products in search results on the site. These algorithms and classifications have points of view. Their point of view, revealed this week, is that “positive references to sexual orientation == gay” is “adult” in nature. And that classifications will be used in the algorithms to sort out what is shown and what does or does not get to have “sales rank,” which then orders items in search results. And we all know search result order can lead to big sales, or invisibility. The SEO industry and Google bank big on that point.

Search for “homosexuality” in Amazon and this is the top result:



Yours truly snickered through the AmazonFail debacle, as my online goto for books has always been AbeBooks, the largest online bookseller in the world, representing thousands of independent booksellers, with an inventory of about 110 million(!) books.

But the joke was on me. AbeBooks, a Canadian firm in Victoria, was acquired in December of 2008 for a price rumoured to be between 90 and 120 million dollars by ... Amazon.com.

Abebooks operates independently. So far.

PRODUCER OF MYSTERIOUS SKIN AND SHORTBUS DEAD AT 43

(Photo via blog of actor David Leong)

Dutch-born Wouter Barendrecht, champion of independent gay cinema and producer of Mysterious Skin and Shortbus, died April 5th in Bangkok at 43 of heart failure. With Michael J. Werner, Barendrecht was the co-chairman of Fortissimo Films, a company he founded in 1991 in Amsterdam.

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION: GAY PENGUIN CHILDREN'S BOOK NOW THREE FOR THREE
And Tango Makes Three, Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s award-winning picture story about two male penguins who become parents has again topped the ALA's most-challenged book list. Tango was targeted for being "pro-gay, anti-religion and anti-family."

Another frequently-challenged library book was Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s million+ selling novel about friendship and betrayal between two Afghan boys, a book club favorite made into a feature film. The novel, which depicts a rape of one of the boys, has been criticized for offensive language and sexual content.