Is Apple vs. Amazon the next “thermonuclear” tech war?
Perhaps not quite yet, but with Amazon moving into smartphones, and Apple choosing to stock the books Amazon refuses to, competition is certainly heating up. That may go some way toward explaining Apple’s acquisition of BookLamp, a startup described as the “Pandora for books,” which offers personalized book recommendations.
BookLamp shut down its services in April, with a message on its website stating that, “As of today [BookLamp] will no longer be available as our company evolves its mission.” It is likely that the acquisition happened at around this point.
As TechCrunch — which reported the purchase — points out, BookLamp’s algorithmic recommender system could serve as a competitor to Amazon X-Ray, which allows readers to see at which points characters or terms appear in a book.
Prior to the acquisition, BookLamp had reportedly done work for Apple into categorization tools, which would allow publishers to scan manuscripts to determine whether a book is likely to sell well, or how much marketing budget should be allocated to it.
“At first Apple and BookLamp talked about growing their contract, but then they talked more from a strategic standpoint,” said a source speaking to TechCrunch. “What Apple wanted to do was, instead of contract, they wanted to make sure whatever work was done was done just for them.”
The same source claims that the goal is “to beat Amazon at their own game” and notes that, “in the next year to 18 months you will see some fairly major initiatives focused on books and reading coming out of Apple.”
The acquisition reportedly cost Apple between $10 million and $15 million, and has been confirmed by Apple. The company is apparently looking to hire additional search talent from eBay to bolster the number of BookLamp employees who have relocated to Cupertino.
Source: TechCrunch
