Bezos has apologized for remotely and silently deleting copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' Kindles last week. He did so via a quick internet text message, since apparently this incident was too shameful for the CEO to bust out with another YouTube vid:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

What can he say, he was preoccupied with shoe shopping and let his company go a little nuts. Happens to the most maniacal of us.

[via TechCrunch]

Bezos' video, above, was directed not at the press or even customers but at Zappos employees, who Bezos presumably wants to keep firmly in place through the acquisition and integration of the company. The CEO of Zappos, meanwhile, did his talking on the company blog.

Bezos cut out the middleman — the press, in this case — big time. And why not? Instead of having to answer boring financial questions, Bezos got to pontificate on Amazon's history, ostensible focus on its customers, and on his management philosophy. The manic laugher would never have been able to sermonize like this in the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE: And of course there's a downside, which is being mocked by the likes of Fast Company's David Lidsky. Lidsky's funny satirical liveblog of Bezos' video is here.

A publisher changed its mind about selling George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm electronically. So Amazon agreed to just go ahead and remotely delete bought and paid for e-copies of the books from people's Kindles.

Owners got refunds, but many were still not happy. Which makes sense; your local bookstore isn't allowed to sneak into your house in the middle of the night, take your books back and leave you a check. If Amazon wants to make the Kindle an iPhone for books, it's well advised to get a bit obsessive about controlling the user experience on the device, as Apple would. But this is taking things too far.

Reports the New York Times:

Unlike Amazon, which sets the retail price for its e-books and sells them in its own proprietary Kindle format, Scribd is offering publishers considerably more control over how their digital titles are sold.

Simon & Schuster will sell its books on Scribd for 20 percent off the list price of the most recent print edition. Amazon sets a price of $9.99 for many popular e-books, meaning titles there might be less expensive. But Scribd will allow publishers to see what is selling and change their prices accordingly.

Scribd also gives publishers 80 percent of revenue. Amazon reportedly gives publishers about half of the list price of books sold for the Kindle, but also discounts many titles and in some cases chooses to make no revenue itself from those sales.

Simon & Schuster will sell its books with anticopying software from Adobe, which means those books can be transferred to devices like the Sony Reader and some mobile phones, but not to Amazon's Kindle.

Since it's already abundantly clear that Kindle is a false prophet for newspapers, would it be safe to assume that if more disgruntled-with-Amazon publishers were to follow suit and partner with Scribd that Amazon might be in big trouble? Because there just might be more deals in the works.

Trip Adler, Scribd's chief executive, says the company is also talking to other major American publishers. "This is the first public endorsement by a major force in publishing that the social Web will play a major role in the future of book sales," Mr. Adler said.

Back in May, after posting significant financial losses, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tried desperately to convince shareholders that Kindle needed to be viewed as an investment and not an income generator. How will he spin further losses? Probably with maniacal laughter!

Simon & Schuster to Sell Digital Books on Scribd.com [New York Times]

Bezos's family foundation is funding research by University of Washington professor Patricia Kuhl, whose research seems to involve putting babies in really freaky-looking scientific equipment. Will this one day lead to Kindle Nanos getting implanted in their ocular nerves at birth? Will their brainwaves be mined to determine today's specials on Amazon.com? With Bezos looking more and more like Dr. Evil with every passing year, the mind boggles. But he already knew that.

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the dilettante scion of a fading newspaper-family dynasty, obediently showed up to announce a trial in which his company will subsidize the $489 retail price of a Kindle DX for readers who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Times or the Boston Globe — assuming the latter is still publishing, since he's threatened to close it down.

The Kindle DX is a fair-looking device — homely in the way that every gadget not made by Apple inevitably is, but passably designed. But will it save newspapers? No. And Bezos is hedging his bets, even as he has managed to scare the press lords into shelling out their precious remaining cash into funding the distribution of his pricey e-reader. Today, he hawked the Kindle DX as a means for reading textbooks, sheet music, novels, and science journals. Newspapers are just one checkbox in a long list of features — and yet he's cajoled the gullible likes of Sulzberger into handing him a pile of cash.

And it's not like Amazon needs the money. It's a steady cash generator — especially for Bezos himself. On Friday, he sold $63 million in Amazon shares. On Monday, as news of the Kindle leaked, he sold another $16 million. If he's such a big believer in supporting journalism, why didn't Bezos announce he was personally giving away 160,000 Kindles to people who agreed to sign up for a newspaper subscription? He could afford it.

(Photo by Gizmodo)

Van Natta, who has long aspired to run a consumer Internet startup, is an obvious choice. Having fallen out of favor with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's fickle 24-year-old CEO, he is spending his exile running a music startup, called Project Playlist, out of an office building shared with Facebook. While Van Natta has managed to extricate Playlist from some of its legal troubles with the music labels, it hardly seems like a gig that encompasses his ambitions. Having worked for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos as well as Zuckerberg, Van Natta seems capable of dealing with a testy owner-CEO like Rupert Murdoch.

Calacanis, meanwhile, has no qualifications for the job. He tanked his first media company, then sold his second one, Weblogs Inc., for $25 million to AOL, where he accomplished nothing of note after the acquisition. He's since raised far too much money for Mahalo, a Web 2.0 rehash of Yahoo's 1995-era Web directory. Silicon Alley Insider thinks he should be MySpace's new CEO because he worships Jon Miller, the former AOL CEO who played mentor to him before Miller was fired and Calacanis quit. Ever the clever fameball, Calacanis is playing coy and saying "No comment" as loudly as possible.

Miller now runs News Corp.'s Internet operations, so he's the one to pick DeWolfe's successor. We have a suggestion: Hire both! Van Natta can do the hard work of fixing MySpace. While he's affable enough, he hardly seems to crave attention.

Tom Anderson, DeWolfe's sleazy sidekick at MySpace, is every MySpace user's first friend when they sign up. He needs a replacement, too. Why not replace him with Calacanis, the ultimate Web fameball, who seems to measure his self-worth by his number of Twitter followers? He doesn't need any other responsibilities. And as MySpace's Chief Ego Officer, he can still claim to be CEO.

Host Jon Stewart seemed discomfited by his guest's wild, table-slapping howls. But any tech reporter who's interviewed Bezos knows that the Amazon.com's CEO hooting laughter is his most distinctive personal quality, the hook of every headline.

As the '90s bubble burst, observers wondered if Bezos's online bookstore would survive, as it lost money with every shipment. In 2000, then-Red Herring editor Jason Pontin called him a "chuckling maniac" running a "terrible company." Oops! Amazon.com survived and thrived while hundreds of other online retailers perished. Every profile writer since then has felt obligated to trot out a tired line about Bezos "getting the last laugh."

Yet that misunderstands Bezos. The laugh is part of his schtick. He's having fun! He's got a surprise! Where Apple CEO Steve Jobs wooed audiences with imperious cool, Bezos plays it loose and goofy. (Like the time he bragged about having sex at a commencement speech.) Just when you think you've got him figured out, he changes his story. It goes something like this:

You thought Amazon.com was a bookstore. No, wait, it's a retailer, the Wal-Mart of the Web. It's a bricks-and-mortar play, with superefficient real-world warehouses. No, it's a software maker whose Web services underpin the likes of Twitter and SmugMug. Oh, never mind — now it's all about the Kindle, which is clearly the iPod of the book world!

By shifting Amazon.com's focus, Bezos gets Wall Street to think about Amazon.com's starry potential rather than the grinding reality of its workaday business, which is a low-margin, highly competitive retail business. Bezos would never get on the Daily Show to talk about Amazon's latest discount electronics offers. That's the real joke here. And that's why Bezos is really laughing.

(Video by Ryan Tate)

How fitting, since Second Life, a piece of software which allows users to move "avatars" representing themselves around in a three-dimensional space and decorate themselves and their virtual land, resembles nothing so much as a failed academic experiment.

Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, has raised $19 million in venture capital from a star-studded list of backers, including Benchmark Capital, the backers of eBay; eBay founder Pierre Omidyar; Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus; and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos. But the last infusion came nearly three years ago. The company charges fees on people and companies who own virtual land in Second Life, and also issues a currency, Linden dollars, used to trade goods in-world. Kapor, the company's chairman, told the Financial Times last year that it was "absolutely in the ballpark of profitability."

Second Life may well be on the verge of profitability. But it is firmly headed into irrelevance. It is impossible to imagine another BusinessWeek cover story like the one it garnered in 2006. Reuters closed its Second Life bureau last year. The former bureau chief, Adam Pasick, told PBS's Mark Glaser that there was no longer a there there:

We were primarily interested in Second Life as a business/commerce/finance phenomenon, covering it like we would any small but fast-growing economy in the real world. The bureau is now closed. Essentially the story we were there to cover has moved on.

His reporter, Eric Krangel, who now writes for Silicon Alley Insider, was more trenchant:

The very things that most appeal to Second Life's hardcore enthusiasts are either boring or creepy for most people: Spending hundreds of hours of effort to make insignificant amounts of money selling virtual clothes, experimenting with changing your gender or species, getting into random conversations with strangers from around the world, or having pseudo-nonymous sex (and let's not kid ourselves, sex is a huge draw into Second Life). As part of walking my 'beat,' I'd get invited by sources to virtual nightclubs, where I'd right-click the dancefloor to send my avatar gyrating as I sat at home at my computer. It was about as fun as watching paint dry.

What's left for Second Life? Community meetings, underattended cultural events, and education. CNN uses its Second Life "island" to hold meetings with volunteer reporters. WGBH threw a virtual concert with a grand total of 70 attendees. And the Modern Language Association, that bastion of English-department wonkery, is pursuing the idea of using it to hold meetings.

Imagine a dry academic conference enlivened with a few space-alien avatars. Deans with mohawks and tight leather pants! Only compared to the life of a university professor might Second Life actually seem exciting. We look forward to the news that Linden Lab has sold itself to an academic consortium. It's where the virtual world belongs.

These next gods will, like their predecessors, be people whose professional and private lives, and even personal appearance, are of equal importance to hordes of obsessed nerds. They're people whose creativity and willpower are presumed to steer the course of personal technology, with legions of engineers and programmers and designers and manufacturing experts carrying out their vision. The key is putting themselves out for all the public to behold, with the hopes of becoming revered by apostles who buy anything they unveil. Seeing as we're running low on golden calves, let's check out the current options:

APPLE
Tim Cook
People say Cook is the man who makes the beautiful products turn into a beautiful pile of money, and he actually took over Apple when Jobs was recovering from his first surgery. A southern gentleman, avid cyclist, iron-fisted boss, mysterious loner, emotionless decider—man, Cook is so easy to reduce to two-word stereotypical descriptors, he's bound for godhood. Even his name comes packaged in a suave but unforgettable two syllables. The catch of course is that he can't ascend the mighty throne of Apple until the big cheese retires or bows out due to health. Cook's trod the boards at Stevenotes before, but now he's holding back—or being held back—perhaps because if he becomes big boss, he'll need a fresh start. All eyes not on Steve are on this guy. Can he fill the shoes left open and be the forceful visionary that Jobs is?
Chance of Godhood? 75% with a few variables we'd rather not think about

Phil Schiller
Schiller has helped sell Apple products since forever, but the general impression is that he's best used as a right-hand man, a Boy Wonder to the real Batman. The mullet/beer gut combo probably doesn't do wonders for his public image, either, though "death diving" from 30 feet up like he did back in '99 isn't a bad way to entertain the fanboys. It's easy to forget that Phil used to be involved in product development, including notebooks, and some even credit him for the addition of the iPod's clickwheel. We also hear that the man can kick some ass behind the scenes. He might have what it takes to be the next product don of Apple, but the current hierarchy won't make it easy for him.
Chance of Godhood? 35% assuming the Apple board is thinking like we're thinking

MICROSOFT
Steve Ballmer
The Monkey Man act may work to get attention, to rally your troops and put fear in your enemies, but it's too easy to make fun of in Photoshop. This kind of attention has taken Ballmer pretty far along the road to godhood, but the public doesn't often see the quieter, shrewder Ballmer that we know exists. The key is this: He is not a code nerd, but a Harvard-educated marketing-and-sales guy. Being able to climb inside the mind of the Average Joe, typically oriented around useful features instead of sheer software power, is what Microsoft needs to limit bloat in product design. If Windows 7 is a success, we'll see the Bruce Banner in this Hulk, but if it's not, it'll be "BALLMER SMASH!!!!" and the end of Microsoft.
Chance of Godhood? 85% assuming Windows 7 erases the terrible memory of Vista

Robbie Bach
Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices boss has Xbox, Zune, Media Center and a lot of other potentially tasty toys in his workshop, and he's rumored to be the man who would replace Ballmer. What's most important here? His group accounts for most of the Microsoft products that don't suck. Word is, though, that the limited profitability of his group, today, limits the amount of respect he gets internally. We say the rest of the company should stop and see what he's doing right. He certainly understands the art of the keynote, strutting around and working the crowd with the shoulders-forward energy of a college football coach. He may be too good at sticking to the script, though. His cautious replies may be good for stockholders, but you can't inspire the masses without a little bit o' crazy.
Chance of Godhood? 70%, higher if he is heard matter-of-factly admitting that Windows Mobile sucks

SONY
Sir Howard Stringer
Usually you get the "sir" appended to your name after you live a wild and crazy life in the public eye, but this guy is only more and more in the spotlight each year. When he talks he brings delightful controversy and charisma, but he doesn't do enough with big crowds. How come no gloaty Blu-ray victory dance party? Chilling with Charlie Rose isn't a direct path to divinity, but showing up with Tom Hanks at CES is a start. Still, Sony needs to regain gadget clout, not remind the world that it's a piracy-fearing movie maker. One thing he has done is give the Japanese firm a leader who isn't afraid to lay off when the company is bloated with employees not pulling their weight, unlike traditional Japanese CEOs. And he encourages Japanese employees to work abroad to increase their understanding of the customers of the world. But he's also been working hard to unify the company's software and hardware development not only in each division, but across product groups. Only Apple and Microsoft have done this successfully, but Sony is actually making progress here, behind the scenes.
Chance of Godhood? 45% because it might just be too late for the guy—or for Sony

GOOGLE
Larry Page/Sergey Brin
Never mind that Google keeps more products in beta than it launches or that these two are tech titans already on the web. Their first foray into hardware was received lukewarmly. But Google is here to stay, and no matter what CEO Eric Schmidt does, these two dudes' faces will be the ones people think of. The last 60 years of tech are full of dynamic duos—Woz and Jobs, Hewlett and Packard, etc.—but unless you've got the timing of Martin and Lewis, it's hard to pull off a tandem keynote. It definitely doesn't help when you show up late wearing rollerblades. We just hope that the company can give their Android division the support it needs to compete with the companies full time in the gadget game, because Android is not only disruptive, but it's the ammo that the phone makers need to compete with the all-in-one giants from Redmond and Cupertino.
Chance of Godhood? 60%, could go up if they release more products, or undergo the operation Damon and Kinnear had in Stuck On You

ASUS
Jonney Shih
Netbook-revolutionary Asus is probably the company (companEee?) doing the most with Apple's old mantra, "think different." Their stuff coming out of Taiwan is radical and fun, and Jonney Shih, little known in these parts, is the sole capitano up top. He's not afraid to rock the microphone, but he keeps doing it at other people's events. Asus also makes a lot of notebooks for competitors, and has hardware expertise to spare. But in terms of software, they're still limited by a strong dependence on Windows for their notebooks. As for their weak brand presence in the mainstream: Dude, you got some cash, time to throw bigger parties of your own, and not just ones timed with CES. And take another page from Apple: Learn how to keep products secret until they're finished and shipping.
Chance of Godhood? 40%, more if he finds a good barber and a dealer of fine turtlenecks and presentation sweaters

HTC
Cher Wang
The phone maker who first teamed with Google and launched the T-Mobile G1 is chaired by, yep, a lady! Named Cher! Cher actually got her start selling computer parts for a computer company, and helped found HTC to realize the vision of the true handheld computer. Even if the HTC brand is only a few years old to consumers, HTC has been making phones for other companies for a while: One in every six phones sold in the US this year were from her factories. They'll grow stronger now that Android is here and Windows Mobile is (hopefully) in a period of major improvement, but their branding and design is still a bit on the chunky side. From the looks of her official corporate portrait, she could probably use a queer eye or two—I know I sound like a dick here, but sadly society does judge women more harshly than men on personal appearance. My guess is that as someone who emphasizes being a "devout Christian" in her bio, she'd probably frown on the whole "tech god" thing anyway.
Chance of Godhood? 30% since Cher's probably too busy to take our advice anyway—she also runs the chipmaker VIA

PALM
Ed Colligan
Colligan's generally stormy course at Palm's helm finally reached some smooth waters: He just unveiled Pre, a fresh, attractive take on the smartphone, bolstered by healthy chunks of DNA from Apple and other new smartphone platforms via the talent they aggressively poached. He's proven he has what it takes to make big aggressive changes with this handset, and get the right talent in place, just like Steve Jobs would. And Colligan isn't afraid to make bold brash statements, a requirement of godhood. But can he go all the way? Currently, his problem is with presenting—he's not all that memorable, which might actually be good if you're the guy who introduced the world to the Palm Foleo.
Chance of Godhood? 15% cuz did I mention he believed, not long ago, that Foleo would "redefine how people work"?

Jon Rubinstein
The "executive chairman" to Colligan's "president and CEO," it's hard to tell if Rubinstein is sitting on the throne or next to it. He has our vote. The man in charge of bringing about Palm's would-be salvation, the Pre, previously at Apple led development of the frickin' iPod (maybe you've heard of it), and has actually out Apple'd Apple with the UI in this new handset. And Rubinstein's team is one of the only in the world that is capable of revolutionizing cellphone operating systems. He keeps it cool on stage, reminding us a little of Nintendo's amiable US boss, Reggie Fils-Aime. And his more than passing resemblance to Jeff Goldblum is a plus, too. One limitation in Palm that both Rubinstein and Colligan have to face: Palm will never build an end to end personal tech environment the way Apple and Microsoft can, even if they are on par in terms of making interfaces from the future.
Chance of Godhood? 55%, but sky's the limit if he can shoo Colligan away

AMAZON
Jeff Bezos
Bezos already was a god—a dotcom god. Many of those other former household names are now mercifully forgotten, but Bezos still shows up on magazine covers. He recently heralded in the eradication of DRM from online music retailers to the applause of paying music customers. But what really surprised us, and earned him a place on this list was that he had such a grand vision of what the ebook should be—the replacement of the book—and the funding and drive to make it happen. But he should do more live appearances to drum up more mainstream excitement over software initiatives like the DRM-free MP3 store and video on demand. And he needs to keep Kindles in stock long enough for people to buy them. Most importantly, he's finally learning that tech gods are only as good as their next products. Just because Bezos understands books on a deep level doesn't mean he'll ever be able to do any other type of gadget besides E-Ink tablets. That's ultimately limiting when it comes to building next-generation personal tech ecosystems. In the meantime, where's my Kindle 2?
Chance of Godhood? 30% if he does more bragging in person, though that braying laugh of his could be a liability

DEKA/SEGWAY
Dean Kamen
Back in 2001, the rumor mill leading up to the launch of the Segway rivaled any Apple buzz. Before the product was even seen, people wrote about it being civilization-changing, and as important as the internet. Kamen's been on a roll (get it?) since then, not just developing the police Segway, the golf Segway and some kind of Segway footstool, but also perfecting a water purifying technology and a truly robotic prosthetic arm, all while greening up his own private island. He's did it all with few mainstream public appearances: Showing up at All Things D with a video of the robot arm—not the real thing—was a misstep in our minds, but appearing on Colbert with a working water purifier was definitely a sign of publicity (and worship) to come. If he can invent something for the gadget lovers of the world that is as bright and thoughtful and life changing as his humanitarian tech, he'd become the Jobs that Jobs wishes he was.
Chance of Godhood? A tragic 45%, seriously, this guy is Q, MacGyver and Hank Scorpio rolled into one—why isn't he a god already?

FACEBOOK
Mark Zuckerberg
The sad fact is that our whole world is shifting over from hardware to software. Sure, Kamens are still needed to make sure there's progress in mechanical devices, but our toys are less and less mechanical. Facebook is probably the best example of an internet platform that has stolen thunder from the gadget world. Trouble with Facebook is that it's big and amorphous, and the charming Zuckerberg needs a second act to propel him into the heavens. Still, he's like 13, with his whole life and a lot of money ahead. He'll think of something. But to be a Gadget God, he'll have to always depend on the hardware of others. At least until we have browsers in our brains with which we can access our social networks with.
Chance of Godhood? 95% even if it doesn't happen in my lifetime

These are all strong candidates, but the assumption is that there will, in fact, be new gadget gods. Maybe, like the ancient gods themselves, our new era doesn't have as much use for them. Maybe it's not just the transition to software, but the shift from bright ideas to massive team efforts. Or maybe Jobs and Gates are the kinds of guys that only come along once a century, and we're gonna have to wait a little longer for something that divine.

Apple, where cofounder Steve Jobs returned to power in 1998, is up 600 percent since the beginning of 2002. Amazon.com, where Jeff Bezos has reigned as CEO more or less uninterruptedly since the online retailer's founding, tripled its worth. Google, where cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin form a troika with hired-hand CEO Eric Schmidt, has also tripled in value since its inital public offering in 2004. These gains remain despite the stock market's punishing fall.

What about Yahoo, eBay, and Microsoft, where founders handed over the company to professional managers? They are all back where they started almost seven years ago. Under former CEO Terry Semel, Yahoo had a brief golden age in 2004, where it outperformed all the other big Internet companies; it ended just as Google began its relentless rise. Meg Whitman overstayed her welcome at eBay, presiding over its stagnation before handing over the CEO job to John Donahoe — like Whitman, also a management consultant by training. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has proven that he's no Bill Gates; the stock has flatlined under his leadership.

Under Yang, the stock has gone down, down, down, interrupted only by the hope that Microsoft might buy the company and in so doing, give its employees the leadership and sense of purpose they so desperately crave. Does that disprove the value of founders? No. Rather, it suggests that by abandoning his company when it was merely a toddler to be reared by strangers, that he was never much of a father figure to begin with.

• Steve Ballmer
• Mitchell Baker
• Jeff Bezos
• Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt
• Jeff Clavier
• Paul Graham
• Arianna Huffington
• Joi Ito
• Steve Jobs
• Jonathan Kaplan
• Loic Le Meur
• Jack Ma
• Matt Mullenweg
• Rupert Murdoch
• Craig Newmark
• Gabe Rivera
• Kevin Rose
• Sheryl Sandberg
• Jon Stewart
• Peter Thiel
• Maria Thomas
• Anssi Vanjoki
• Jimmy Wales
• Evan Williams
• Jerry Yang

Finsphere hasn't announced its product plans, but a job listing for an engineeering position suggests it's engaged in some kind of wireless play.

The other company, Aviary, makes Internet-based image-, video-, and music-creation tools. Like Finsphere, it hasn't publicly announced any investors. But check out the team caricatures on their "About" page. Doesn't the fellow in the lower right-hand corner look a bit like Bezos?

Bezos's current investments:

(Photo via Seattle Times)

Limited Brands CEO Leslie Wexner, for example, spent much of his $1.25 million 2007 security allowance toward "protecting" his corporate aircraft, yacht and 22,371-sq. ft. home. "Security has become a convenient excuse for getting shareholders to pick up the cost for the CEO's lifestyle,' corporate watchdog American Federation of State's director of corporate governance and pension investment told the Wall Street Journal. (Illustration by Richard Blakeley)

My question is whether or not the car will be passing through the enclaves of wealth on the east side of Lake Washington like Mercer Island and Medina, where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has his four-story underground bunker. Still, the homes of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Clearwire founder Craig McCaw are all within Seattle city limits, so happy Street View hunting! (Photos by Jed Rosenzweig)