Law Librarian Blog

Kindle for PC App Now Available From Amazon

In Amazon Expanding Market for Kindle Books to 1 Billion PC Users (Nov. 1, 2009), we reported that Amazon was expected to release a free software application this month that will allow users to read Kindle editions of books, on their PCs. The Kindle for PC app is now available. See today's press release from Amazon.com. Here's the link to the app's download page.

TeleRead's David Rothman reports on his test drive of the Kindle for PC app. See his Quick test drive: Kindle for PC looks promising—but is no match for Mobipocket in flexibility. And how about ePub? Do note his caveat:

Regardless of the Amazon app’s positives I’ll still be wary of all things Kindle due to the proprietary format and DRM. If you’re interested in building a library of books from large publishers, then you’d be better off with the Sony Reader or the B&N Nook—at least if plans work out and Sony and B&N and Adobe can execute a common DRM scheme for ePub books. Even then, if you really value permanence, then stick to paper books or the nonDRMed variety.

[JH]

Extension Granted in Google Book Settlement

New York District Court Judge Denny Chin granted an extension from November 9 to “no later than this Friday, November 13" for submitting revisions to the Google Book Search settlement yesterday. See the New York Times article Google and Authors Win Extension for Book Settlement. On Concurring Opinions, Matthew Sag, author of The Google Book Settlement and the Fair Use Counterfactual [SSRN], speculates about the contents of the revised agreement. [JH]

The Recipe for Better Legal Information Services Will Be Concocted by the "Invisible Hand" of Competition

In his now famous video, Bob Berring argues that free legal information does not pose a threat to traditional legal publishers, that free access to primary legal resources will not replace the editorial services of West and LexisNexis (well, actually Berring failed to mention LexisNexis by name in the West-sponsored video), that the bundling of primary law and editorial content provided by WEXIS is here to stay. In a nutshell, legal information consumers shouldn't bother trying to do better than WEXIS. See LLB's Don't Waste Your Time Trying to Do Better Than WEXIS: Responses to Berring on Open Access Law. If that's the case, then welcome to the status quo: duopoly profits in legal publishing with innovation defined as the trivial tweaking of fee-based services offered by WEXIS based on antiquated database designs.

The recipe for better legal information services is not going to be concocted by WEXIS. Absent competition, there is no motivation to change the status quo. But competition exists and it is only going to increase. We are in the midst of a transformative change in the structure of legal publishing. The national LIIs led the way by starting a worldwide movement to make legal resources freely available online following the pioneering example set by Cornell's Legal Information Institute. Free and low-cost web-based online search services, some with innovative research tools, have increased user options. The Law.gov project offers to consolidate these early developments by proposing a government-supported open source platform for an authenticated registry and repository of primary US legal materials that once was the corporate domain of West and LexisNexis. Do not believe for a second that WEXIS doesn't see this as a threat and won't do everything in their power to delay this transformation in legal publishing from happening.

Change is already underway. In response to the question, "Will the current economic situtaion be 'good' for free and low cost online legal research services -- do you see or expect to see patrons use them more frequently than in the past?" 84% of the responses to an LLB poll answered in the affirmative. 71% of those who answered "yes" to the question believe usage of free and low cost legal research services will be permanent. It will remain even after the economy improves. See Should LexisNexis and Thomson West Be Worried About the Economy's Turbulence? Results of the LLB Poll (April 20, 2009). While not a great threat to WEXIS this does give some indication that legal information consumers are seeking ways and means to move beyond the status quo. Law librarians dissatisfied with poor customer service [link to LLB's survey findings] and unreasonable pricing practices [link to LLB's survey findings] of some legal information vendors are adding momentum for rejecting the statuo quo at the institutional consumer level.

The repository proposed by the Law.gov project, which I personally believe will be up and running in the next 5 or so years, will be available to anyone creative enough to offer better legal information services. Who will concoct the recipe? In Some Thoughts on the Bob Berring Video Comments, Mark Giangrande suggests it could be Google. "It’s obvious they have no plans to create a legal database, at least as of now.  But if their mission is to organize all of the world’s knowledge in an easily findable form, then it’s a natural for them to take on a project such as this.  Moreover, they are probably the only company who has the capital and the mindset to upset the status quo for organizing legal literature online. If Google gave us Boolean search (something it does not have now) and organization (something it can do) it can give Westlaw and Lexis a run for their money." I personally believe that "Google US Law" is on the Company's long-range to-do list. It's a no-brainer once Law.gov's proposed repository of authenticated primary legal materials is available.

In It's Time for Law.Gov, I suggested that legal information professionals "imagine a world where choosing to use LexisNexis and Westlaw is based primarily on their online secondary legal resources, interfaces and research tools after the duopolist market structure in the legal publishing industry has been smashed because authenticated primary legal information is available from multiple sources." This will be a world where "competition" is not defined as West vs. LexisNexis. Competition in the marketplace for legal information will be analogous to the situation the Big Three auto makers faced in the late 1970s-early 1980s when US consumers began buying Japanese (and later Korean) cars and trucks in mass instead of buying over-priced poorly engineered and assembled gas guzzlers from Detroit. 

This will be a world of consumer options defined by value-added services far beyond late 19th-early 20th century editorial contributions like headnotes and key numbers, and the shoehorning of publication formats like the legal treatise into WEXIS databases that were neither designed nor intended to accomodate them. The primary reason to buy WEXIS products will likely be the quality of the secondary legal products they offer, whether they will offer them in usable digital formats, and something legal information professionals really haven't seen in a very long time, market-based competitive pricing. The need to be innovative will be forced upon WEXIS by the marketplace because WEXIS will have lost its stranglehold on primary legal materials.

Competition may very well be defined as involving West and LexisNexis and BNA and Wolters Kluwer and probably something like "Google US Law" plus start-up companies taking advantage of the return of the "Invisible Hand." This market will eventually settle on redesigned products and services, modern, that is to say, more sophicated methods of distribution, plus licensing options and pricing that is more beneficial to all members of the legal information community, namely, end users and those institutional providers (read law libraries) and legal publishers who are agile enough to accept the challenge.

Those of us who have been in this profession long enough to remember the advent of online legal research services can recall the early negative reaction to them and that reaction's lack of foresight. Too bad we didn't put some in a time capsule 30-plus years ago. Perhaps someone will put the Berring video in a time capsule with a note that reads, "Open in 2040." Considering the pace of change, perhaps it should read "Open in 2020." [JH]

Hooked on WEXIS: Cost as Cure When Moving from Law School to Real Life Online Legal Research

In Some Thoughts on the Bob Berring Video Comments, LLB co-editor Mark Giangrande notes what all law firm librarians face each time a new class of freshly minted lawyers join their firms, students are addicted to Westlaw and LexisNexis in law school without realizing what the services actually cost. Sue Altmeyer, Electronic Services Librarian, Cleveland State Univ. College of Law, has posted her Powerpoint step-by-step guide to saving legal research expenses using both services and low-cost alternatives along with some additional comments here. Step one: freshly minted lawyers need to know what's covered in their Westlaw or LexisNexis licensing agreement. While law schools' WEXIS offerings are fairly comprehensive, new lawyers don't realize that their firm's WEXIS plans may not be nearly as comprehensive until the bills come in. Sue's Powerpoint does a good job explaining WEXIS plans, plus illustrating out-of-plan searching with screen captures and how to compute costs. [JH]

Can the Rule of Law Exist in Virtual Worlds?

West Virginia law prof Michael Risch's Virtual Rule of Law, 112 West Virginia Law Review 1 (2009) [SSRN] is the first article to consider whether virtual worlds provide a rule of law that sets expectations for virtual business. From the abstract:

The article finds – unsurprisingly – that virtual worlds now lack many of the elements of the rule of law. Which aspects fail is more surprising, however. Provider agreements and computer software, the sources of regulation that are most often criticized as “anti-user,” provide the best theoretical hope for achieving the rule of law, even if they currently fail in practice. On the contrary, widely proposed “reforms,” such as community norms, self-regulation, and importation of real-world law face both theoretical and practical barriers to implementation of the rule of law in virtual worlds.

[JH]

i-Law Apps, where i = international

Each fall I co-teach an international and foreign law research seminar with my friend and collague Jean Davis.  Our students' midterm is an oral presentation on a legal issue in a foreign jurisdiction.  In the presentation, our students present research tools, advice on how to research, troubleshooting, etc. 

Usually, we are fortunate and learn about new tools from our class.  This semester we learned about some apps at the Apple istore for English translations of Chinese laws.  If that wasn't surprising enough, they were only $2 a pop!  And how much was that new treatise on Chinese insolvency law we just bought?

The apps list a blog address for their source. Hmmm.  A bit suspect. I am having some trouble downloading in my PC-based world. I intend to give it some attention when I have more time to spend in our Mac lab.  If I am successful, I'll be sure to report back to the blogosphere with my analysis.

I think what I find most interesting is that the student would turn to an i-phone application to find sources of law.  She included the more traditional sources in her presentation, but to think about her i-phone as part of her arsenal was an eye-opener for me.  To her credit, she expressed dismay that she could find Chinese laws in translation, but could not find a version of the USC or the FRCP for her i-phone.  She also showed me her app flash cards and a few others that she uses for school work.  A brave new world indeed.

Right now I'm feeling like iii should have spent their time on creating a Millennium app instead of a bibliographic utility like SkyRiver. (VS)

Reminder: AALL Webinar on Global Law Coming Up

AALL is sponsoring a webinar covering research aspects of foreign and international law.  The deadline for registration is Friday.  From the description:

Don't miss the chance to register for AALL's November webinar, Global Legal Research: Routes to Success (November 19, 12 p.m. EDT). This session will help you hit the ground running when confronted with a question about foreign and international law. Join two global research experts as they discuss how to approach global research, sensible starting points, legal systems and terminology, resource strategies, collections, and more.  Register by this Friday, November 13! 

[MG]

IRS Web Site Reflects New Rules for Homebuyer Legislation Signed Nov. 6

The Internal Revenue Service web site is updated to include tax information stemming from the President's signing of legislation last Friday that expands the first-time homebuyer credit. The tax details for new homebuyers is here.  Updated tax information about other provisions of the new legislation and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is here.  The Act has its own web site, here.  [MG]

LLB's Rate Your Legal Resources Vendors Survey: Findings on Reasonableness of Annual Price Increases for Products and Services Offered by BNA, LexisNexis, West and Wolters Kluwer

This was the "bang for your buck" section of LLB's Rate Your Legal Resources Vendors Survey. In view of the current state of library economics, the issue is important to put it mildly. By format for each vendor's products and services, survey takers were asked to rate the reasonableness of annual price increases for the resources offered to their patrons. Click on image left for survey demographics. Part one of the survey's findings was published at Customer Services Findings for BNA, LexisNexis, West and Wolters Kluwer

This component of the survey asked the following two questions:

1. In terms of the reasonableness of annual print continuation pricing for the value of the publications in your collection, how would you rate your vendors?

Well, it should come as no surprise to anyone in the law library community that almost 80% of the survey takers rated West's print continuation pricing relative to the value of West titles in their library collections as Very Poor or Poor. See Table 1. What is interesting is the degree of dissatisfaction with West's unreasonable print pricing practices. As indicated in Table 3 below, 43% rated West Print pricing Very Poor. That's more than four times the next highest response rate in the Very Poor category (10% for LexisNexis Print and Wolters Kluwer Print). If ever there was a vendor that has alienated its customers by its pricing practices, West is the one.

Average ratings ranged from 48.78% for BNA Print to 48.53% for LexisNexis Print and 40.46% for Wolters Kluwer Print. BNA Print received the highest Good or Excellent response rate at almost 23%.

2. In terms of the reasonableness of annual online service pricing for the value of the resources provided by your institution, how would you rate your vendors?

Almost 49% of the survey takers rated Westlaw's annual online pricing Very Poor or Poor followed fairly closely by Wolters Kluwer Online pricing which received a response rate of about 43% for Very Poor or Poor. See Table 2. Do note the candid comments survey takers wrote about Wolters Kluwer Online pricing in response to this question.

Once again, Westlaw received the highest Very Poor response rate at 18%. That is twice as high as LexisNexis Online's Very Poor response rate. See Table 3 below. However, I wouldn't recommend making too big a deal about this. Annual price increases for online services (but not initial licensing agreements) may be more market driven than print pricing with one catch, namely libraries locking themselves into multiple year Westlaw contracts for West's Print Package Plans -- a bad as in advantageous only to West idea if I ever saw one. Ever try to swap out even one print title you wanted to cancel for a similarly priced title during the term of your Westlaw contract? A 50% discount for a print title no longer needed in the collection is a 100% waste of money. No other vendor I have worked with has ever been this inflexible. Such is the "partnership" the law library community has with West.

For this question, LexisNexis Online was "best in class" with a 24% response rate for Good or Excellent. Do note in Table 3 below that LexisNexis Online also received the highest "Excellent" response rate at 10%. No other online vendor came even close to such high marks.

A Few Comments. I think the findings need no further commentary than to say that West gets "kudos" for maximizing its duopolist advantage. The Company's pricing practices are clearly viewed as being unreasonable for the value of West publications and services in the libraries of the survey takers.

However, law libraries share responsibility for allowing this situation to remain this way for so long. Law library collections and services are driven in no small part by institutional inertia. Once a product or service has been acquired, it tends to stay part of the mix of offerings to library patrons regardless of outrageous pricing practices. Legal publishers like West have "banked" on this institutional inertia but there comes a point in time when law libraries are forced by circumstances beyond their control to put an end to this madness. It's called economic necessity. Sure law libraries have dealt with budget cuts before but not to the extent they have been facing recently.

Welcome to the "Shed West" era. Why? I think it is fair to say law librarians view West as being hell-bent on squeezing every last penny out of library print budgets to preserve its 30-plus percent profit margin for as long as the Company can. Once there's nothing left, law librarians expect Westlaw's annual pricing rates to increase substantially. West has a very long road to travel to earn any lasting degree of goodwill with many if not most members of the law library community. How many law librarians actually believe goodwill is a component in the Company's strategic decision-making? The fact that our own professional association fails miserably to serve -- to even demonstrate having the will to serve -- as a strong and vocal consumer advocate for law libraries in this matter only exacerbates this situation.

If you view the world of competition as West vs. LexisNexis, LexisNexis certainly has an opportunity to escape the cutback axe for more of its products and services by moderating its annual price increases than West does. LexisNexis clearly provides better customer service than West which survey takers view as the worst provider of customer service in the legal publishing industry. See LLB's Customer Services Findings for BNA, LexisNexis, West and Wolters Kluwer. Moderate price increases plus quality customer service matters. Goodwill matters. If you do not trust your vendor, find one you can for comparable products and services. 

When it come to goodwill and striving to maintain a constructive long-term relationship with the library community, LexisNexis and BNA appear to have the edge over Wolters Kluwer, damaged by the IntelliConnect fiasco and their online pricing practices, and West. In the words of one survey taker, "West's increases are unconscionable." To quote another, "There is no possible justification for the price increases from West."  And a third, "West seems to be 'churning' - publishing updates & replacement volumes more frequently than necessary." Still every vendor has its distractors. For more thoughts on the situation, the comments provided by the survey takers are republished below.

By the way, I firmly believe there are plenty of West employees ready, willing and wanting to address the economic realities law libraries are currently facing in a reasonable manner. But they are restrained (think BDSM) by corporate executives utterly focused on maximizing short-term gains.

Survey Findings.Table 3 displays law librarian survey responses for each specific vendor. The range for each vendor's specific rating -- Very Poor, Poor, Average, Good, Excellent -- is a percentage of that vendor's total responses by product format. On this basis, comparisons of the four vendors' print and online products ratings can be made.  Once again, I would like to thank everyone who participated in this survey. It's utterly unscientific but until AALL gets off its collective ass, at least it is something. [JH]

Comments to In terms of the reasonableness of annual print continuation pricing for the value of the publications in your collection, how would you rate your vendors?

West's increases are unconscionable. I wish we could dump every West product we own. I think lots of libraries are playing "chicken," waiting to see who will do mass cancellations first. Now that Harvard has cancelled so many West products I hope the rest of us will buck up and do the same.

There is no possible justification for the price increases from West.
   
West recently sent less than 50 pgs for $209.
   
AND it's time West stopped playing guessing games with its annual increases.  They know we work on our budgets in the Fall, and they know how many new volumes of the digests, codes, etc., they're going to release in the next 12 months.  But when I call my rep, he can't tell me solid #'s ... just ""budget for a 10-15% increase.

There's no way for us to be able to tell how much a West title may go up. It's just guesswork.

I need reliable numbers, even if they're not pretty.  That way I can generate a reasonably-accurate budget.  It really really sucks to get hit in the solar plexus with 25 volumes of FPD4 halfway through my budget cycle.  That's a bitter pill to swallow when I *know* that West knew those books were coming months ahead of time (after all, it's their own editorial staff doing the work).

Years ago, when Matthew Bender's pricing was out of control, the librarians protested, and MB converted to an annual subscription model with modest price increases.  C'mon West - get on board!

It's time for West to adopt annual subscription pricing for its large sets:  the reporters, the digests, state codes, etc.
   
West was once excellent on pricing. The price jumps on all their print products have been immense this year and we have been forced to cancel many items we really wanted to keep.  BNA has always been extremely expensive, so we only rarely purchase additional titles from BNA. 

Seriously, do we need additional comments here? West's pricing model, and to a lesser extent Lexis is based on increasing the price of the product to the point where we are forced to cancel them. Perhaps that is the model they are seeking, if so please just come out and say print is dead.

They all charge too much, but West seems to be "churning" - publishing updates & replacement volumes more frequently than necessary.  Wolters Kluwer charges waaaaay to much and their shipping fees seem unreasonable.
   
BNA supplementation (and the cost of new print treatises) is extremely expensive, and West is out of control.
   
I keep a spreadsheet of library invoices -- the managing partner's jaw dropped when I showed him the price increases over the last 3 years of each product.
   
No One seems to recognize "its the economy, stupid". Wolters--particularly their Aspen titles--continues to be especially greedy.   
 
In an economic downturn, no one's prices should be raised 10% or more.  Extremely abusive pricing this year was with Lexis Colorado Revised Statues.  How does 90% increase sound to you?  Needless to say, I'm steamed about it. 
  
Reasonableness is a vague term.  When continuation is more than getting a new publication, I would not call that reasonable. 
  
Wolters Kluwer sends supplements on some former RIA products that cost at least as much as buying the title new.

None of them are reasonable.

Comments to the question: In terms of the reasonableness of annual online service pricing for the value of the resources provided by your institution, how would you rate your vendors?

Hard to be confidently objective on this one, and I don't know how to answer it.  LexisNexis gets a "Good" from me because they didn't go up this year.  Wolters Kluwer gets "Very Poor" because their proposed price increase is several hundred percent of what we were paying when it was CCH, and we're not sure the use justifies even keeping the service, much less paying that much more for it.
   
We are being taken to the cleaners over our CCH online libraries.

The Wolters Kluwer online offerings have the worst platform of the three vendors and the hardest one to search. Even the new CCH Intelliconnect is not as user friendly as the other three. The Wolters Kluwer pricing is too high for the value.

Wolters Kluwer is pulling a fast one with the CCH databases - charging more for the CCH (now IntelliConnect)  while removing prime publications (like Loss on Securities) to create boutique databases that are very expensive. 
  
If you had a "very, very very poor" I would choose that for Wolters Kluwer which is intent on gouging the legal community by acquisition. But I suppose they had West for a role model.

Our LOISLaw prices and CCH online prices were increased dramatically.  CCH will not unbundle their subscriptions and charge a reasonable rate.

We have been unable to reach any agreement with Lexis for access to LexisNexis at a reasonable pay- for-what-you-use rate.

Discontiued L/N this year because billing was "all over the place" and the proposed renewal price was to high.

Only have Lexis, can't afford anything else.

As much as I appreciate the scope of resources on these products, the business model needs to change for Lexis and Westlaw to a "cafeteria plan" where we can select the content we need/want and not have to pay for the entire content set.  It is all just too expensive, particularly with client resistance to cost recovery.   
   
West and Lexis could charge us $100,000.00 a year for their product and in the end we would have to follow suit and pay it. Our students rely almost exclusively on these products so if I had to cut almost every print title I own to maintain these two services it would be in the best interest of the students to do so. What we are currently paying for WL/Lexis is so low, that is far below market value. The AMLAW 200 pay close to a million per year for these services. Most of our law schools have enough students and faculty to count as AMLAW 200 law firms.
   
BNA bases their online pricing on the number of law school students.  It's a very bad model for law schools.  None of the vendors understand the difference between a law school and law firms.

BNA actually told us they don't care what we paid last year. They priced their services and that's how they will charge.  Sometimes that had caused a 10 or 15% increase in a renewal. UNREASONABLE. They actually said they won't cut a price if it will impact their profit.
   
BNA is very expensive. West is fine for Westlaw, but their other online products are over priced.
   
BNA actually told us they don't care what we paid last year. They priced their services and that's how they will charge.  Sometimes that had caused a 10 or 15% increase in a renewal. UNREASONABLE. They actually said they won't cut a price if it will impact their profit margin.

I believe all print and online are entirely to costly what librarian wouldn't like to see prices go down instead of up.
   
All misjudge the market   

In some cases certain vendors seem to be gauging customers with their online contract rates.

Material is excellent.  Prices are too high.

The World Needs More Diversity in Book Digitizing Sources: Forbes Profiles Brewster Kahle

Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive founder who recently announced the BookServer project as a vehicle to compete with Amazon's Kindle e-books and Google Editions for vending and lending e-books over the Internet is profiled in Forbes at Lend Ho! Brewster Kahle is a thorn in Google's side.

For more on BookServer, see LLB's Internet Archive Unveils BookServer to Centralize Distribution of eBooks amd the Resource Shelf's New From the Internet Archive: Bookserver, An Open System Allowing Users to Search Multiple eBook Catalogs from a Single Interface, Makes Crawling Easier Too! See also Vicki Szymczak's LLB post on Google Editions. [JH]

Google Dashboard: Learn What Google Knows About Your Usage of Google Services, Or If You're Not That Paranoid, Here's a Way to Manage Google Services Tied to Your Google Account, Or Do Both

The recently launched Google Dashboard is the place to go to learn what Google knows about you and those of your online habits tied to your Google account. It's also a great way to manage your Google account-Google services tie-in. You can, for example, configure your privacy settings for some of the Google services tied to your Google account from links provided in your personalized dashboard.

The Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and others. It displays some of the information associated with the Google services you use including your name, your email address, the number of contacts, the number of conversations in your Gmail inbox, your Google profile, your list of Google docs, your Google calendar, YouTube profile and viewing history and subscriptions, your iGoogle settings, etc.

Check out the video demonstration below and log in into the Google Dashboard here. You'll also find a link to the Google Dashboard in the "personal settings" of Google's "my account" page.

Hat tip to Mashable's Stan Schroeder, Google Dashboard: Now You Know What Google Knows About You by way of Slaw's Omar Ha-Redeye post. [JH]

House Passes Landmark Health-Care Bill by 5 Vote Margin

The Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, passed in the House of Representative by a vote of 220-215 yesterday. The bill seeks to expand health care coverage to the approximately 40 million Americans who are currently uninsured by lowering the cost of health care and making the system more efficient. To that end, it includes a new government-run insurance plan (a.k.a. a public option) to compete with the private companies, a requirement that all Americans have health insurance, a ban on denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition and, to pay for it all, a surtax on individuals with incomes above $500,000. Details on H.R. 3962 on Open Congress.

Just a sample of major media coverage:

• Wall Street Journal: House Passes Health-Care Bill in Historic Vote
• New York Times: Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House
• Washington Post: House Democrats pass health-care bill

More:

The Washington Post's roll call for the vote includes information on campaign contributions from the health care industry accepted by each Member of Congress and the percent in each district's population without health insurance.

The Wall Street Journal's Parsing the House Health Bill offers a brief synopsis of what the bill would mean for various groups.

[JH]

Auletta's Googled: The End of the World As We Know It

From the blurb for Ken Auletta's Googled: The End of the World As We Know It (Penguin Press, Nov. 3, 2009):

Using Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution, Auletta takes readers inside Google's closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with-and against-them. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account ever told of Google's rise, shares the "secret sauce" of Google's success, and shows why the worlds of "new" and "old" media often communicate as if residents of different planets.

Google engineers start from an assumption that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient, an approach that has yielded remarkable results- Google will generate about $20 billion in advertising revenues this year, or more than the combined prime-time ad revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. And with its ownership of YouTube and its mobile phone and other initiatives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Auletta his company is poised to become the world's first $100 billion media company. Yet there are many obstacles that threaten Google's future, and opposition from media companies and government regulators may be the least of these. Google faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. In coming years, Google's faith in mathematical formulas and in slide rule logic will be tested, just as it has been on Wall Street.

See also Ken Auletta's book release interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. [JH]