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U.S. stocks tanked on Friday, with investor sentiment slammed by increasing worries about trouble in emerging markets. "This is more of a geoeconomic kind of thing. The Friday dates plays into this, the end of the month plays into this, and it does appear emerging markets, one by one, will need to take additional central bank action over the next few days," said Jim Russell, senior equity strategist for U.S. Bank Wealth Management.

"...The timed sales aspect is an impetus to get consumers to act more quickly but that alone is not what makes Groupon successful. It is a necessity more than anything and not the reason why consumers are there in the first place. What I believe is the key to Groupon's success is that many consumers, myself included like ..." (continued)

(Reuters) - Amazon is in the early stages of developing a pay-TV streaming service with live programming, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Amazon approached at least three media companies, according to people familiar with the matter the Journal reported.

Amazon.com knows you so well it wants to ship your next package before you order it. The Seattle retailer in December gained a patent for what it calls “anticipatory shipping,” a method to start delivering packages even before customers click “buy.”

Oh, gummy bears! They’re so tasty and delicious you can never eat just one. In fact most of us eat them by the handful. And with diet season in full swing, some of us may be looking at the sugar-free alternative to help ease the gummy bear cravings. But before you hop on Amazon to make a bulk purchase of the sugar-free variety, you just might want to read the safety warnings. Or better yet, take a look at the user submitted reviews. We’ve compiled the best of the best for you here at Slightly Viral…

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos suffered a kidney stone attack while in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands and had to be airlifted by an Ecuadorian navy helicopter to his personal jet, then flown to the US for surgery, according to ABC News. Bezos is said to have suffered the attack on January 1st aboard a cruise ship, according to local media outlet Galapagos Digital. The helicopter's pilot was quoted by another Spanish-language outlet, El Comercio, as saying he received messages of thanks from Bezo's family and business partners. We've reached out to Amazon for comment on the situation and will update...

Disney has decided to pull access to several purchased Christmas videos from Amazon during the holiday season, as the movie studio wants its TV-channel to have the content exclusively. Affected customers have seen their videos disappear from their online libraries, showing once again that not everything you buy is actually yours to keep. One of the best ways to deal with online piracy is to make content available legally. This is common knowledge by now, but copyright holders still believe that exclusivity can earn them more in the long run, even when it hurts legitimate customers. A good example of...

Looking to take advantage of online sales, millions of people will be ordering online goods on this “Cyber Moday.” While those goods will likely arrive in a week or so, delivered by USPS, UPS or FedEx ground crew, delivery methods may soon enter into new air space, compliments of the ubiquitous drone. Last night, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dropped a bombshell on the Sunday night TV news show “60 Minutes” when he said that his company was developing so-called “copter” drones to deliver online goods, with a tentative launch date potentially arriving in the next four to five years. Though...

The bride was gorgeous; the groom was old and arthritic, and everyone agreed they were an odd match. When Amazon married the United States Postal Service for its new Sunday package delivery service, who got the better deal? Most people probably would pick USPS, the quasi-government agency operating with all the fiscal sanity of Obamacare. Prevented by Congress from implementing cost-cutting measures, USPS has lost a staggering $45 billion since 2007, and already has defaulted three times on its obligations. Its business model is kaput; first-class mail volume decreased by 30 percent over seven years, and the future looks even...

Union Verdi is preparing more strikes to step up pressure on Amazon in Germany, its biggest market outside the United States, in a dispute over pay and conditions, German media reported. Workers at Amazon centers in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig will walk out for at least one day on Monday, Heiner Reimann of Verdi told daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten. The union has organized several short strikes this year in a bid to force the world's biggest Internet retailer to accept a collective agreement on employment conditions similar to deals for the mail order and retail sector, which are more generous than...

The way the Tsimane tribe of the northern Amazon host beer drinking events offers important clues about the nature of their society, say anthropologists The indigenous Tsimane hunter-gatherers of the northern Amazon are probably the best studied native community in the world. About ten years ago, a team of US researchers began a decade-long research program to better understand the way these people develop, evolve and socialise as part of a unique farmer-forrager community . The so-called Tsimane Health and Life History Project has thrown up some fascinating insights into the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Last year, for example, the team revealed...

Synopsis: An Amazon Original series: They work in the Senate. They live in the house - Alpha House. Created by Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury, Tanner '88).

Amazon is trying to do something the United States Government refuses to do: Save the U.S. Post Office. In a press release early Monday morning, Amazon announced it would be using the United States Postal Service to help deliver packages in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas on Sundays. Amazon and the Postal Service said the service would be rolled out further in the U.S., going to major metropolitan cities in 2014 including Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix. “As online shopping continues to increase, the Postal Service is very happy to offer shippers like Amazon the option...

“Every day is now an Amazon delivery day.” So says Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations and customer service, announcing a deal with the United States Postal Service that will allow the delivery of Amazon purchases on Sunday. Clark is guilty of some exaggeration. To qualify, you must be a member of Amazon’s $79-a-year Amazon Prime program. And when the service begins on Nov. 17, it will only be available in New York and Los Angeles, though there are plans to gradually expand to other cities. But the gist is clear: Amazon’s message to everyone who has lived...

Okay, my last novel, "Castigo Cay," is in the Kindle store on a free run today through Wednesday. It's a departure from the characters and situations in the Enemies Trilogy, but it's still a look forward at a crumbling, semi-dystopian America. The main character is Dan Kilmer, a thirty-something former Marine scout/sniper who is trying to live as a free man in a world that is anything but free. This is the last novel I have written. Over the past six weeks I've put all of my titles on Kindle free runs. I have nothing left in the inventory, and...

Morgan Stanley lowered its industry view on internet stocks to "in-line" from "attractive," saying growth in the sector needs to accelerate to justify current valuations. Shares of Facebook Inc and LinkedIn Corp have more than doubled in the last one year, and trade 44 and 97 times forward earnings, according to Thomson Reuters data. Google Inc's shares have risen 56 percent in the same period and trade almost 20 times earnings, data showed. Morgan Stanley analysts said the rise in the valuation of internet stocks has been due to investors looking at the total addressable market (TAM) opportunity with minimal...

I had a good response to putting the Enemies trilogy novels on Kindle free runs the last three weeks, so I decided to go ahead and do it with everything I have. The Bracken Anthology is a good introduction to my stuff, both fiction and nonfiction, so if you can spread the links to your "low information" friends and family, it might slap some sense into them. Or just entertain them. I'm doing these free runs prior to going sailing next year, and spending (I hope) a lot of time over the horizon and unconnected.All of these "internet published" short...

Massachusetts residents have only a few days of tax-free shopping left on Amazon.com. Beginning Friday, the state will apply its 6.25 percent sales tax to purchases made from Amazon, though the tax will not apply to third-party vendors who use the site. The state reached an agreement with Amazon last year. Owners of traditional "brick and mortar" stores have long complained of being at a competitive disadvantage to online retailers who are not required to collect sales taxes. State revenue officials tell The Boston Globe the tax on Amazon purchases is expected to raise nearly $37 million for the state...

Six Republicans and three Democrats in the state House last week approved a two bill package that would establish an Internet tax in Michigan. House Bills 4202 and 4203 are aimed at forcing Michigan residents to pay taxes on purchases they make on the Internet. Gov. Rick Snyder favors the bills, but, according to news accounts, House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, is less than enthused about bringing the legislation up for a vote in the full House. A key aspect of the issue is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said a physical presence was required to compel retailers...

I have always been a reader and one of my snobbish instincts has been to shun people who do not read. Houses without books or magazines leave me cold. Yet now I realize that I have not bought a dead tree book in months and I have hit that Amazon link "Tell the publisher" many many times! On my iPad I have more than 240 books plus several Bible versions and multiple periodicals. Now I find myself refreshing my mind about a particular passage in a book in minutes instead of almost never. Additionally, I am privileged to be able...