BEST OF THE WEB: How Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the internet

Amazon is one of the few tech companies, along with Facebook, Apple and Google, that are really defining the tech industry of the past 10 years. While many consumers might still see the business as a source for cheap books, it’s become so much more – and as this piece on Wired shows, its reach stretches beyond simple retail into total web dominance.

Chief executive Jeff Bezos has dominated the retail space, but many internet users wouldn’t know just how much of the internet Amazon controls or has sway over. As the piece shows, Netflix, FourSquare and Virgin Atlantic all use Amazon’s servers to host data – if an outage were to occur, several of the world’s most popular websites would fail.

But Bezos’ reach stretches beyond retail and hosting. Now, the company is moving into industries it previously had no presence in at all. It now sells films, television shows, and has even started a publishing arm to get unknown writers on the map.

And now, with the release of its new tablet, the Kindle Fire, Amazon is preparing to move into a new stage of its life as it fights against Apple as a curator of media services.

“The release of the Fire showcases how forward-thinking Bezos has been. After 15 years near the top of the tech heap, he doesn’t have the same outsize profile of other internet innovators. (Nobody has made a TV biopic or Academy Award-winning drama about his rise to power, for instance.)”

“But that may be changing. People are slowly beginning to realize just how much of the web is powered by Amazon’s cloud services. And industry observers see Amazon’s entry into the tablet sweepstakes as further evidence that Bezos may well be the premier technologist in America, a figure who casts as big a shadow as legends like Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs.”

Bezos’ reach is simply huge, and stretches through media services and content throughout the globe. In a series of interviews with Wired, Bezos explains how the company continues to look forward and has plans to innovate new services.

“In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough. eBooks had to happen. Infrastructure web services had to happen. So you can do these things with conviction if you are long-term-oriented and patient.”

“I like invention. For me, it feels like the rate of change on the internet today is even greater than it was in 1995. It’s hard for me to imagine a more exciting arena in which to invent. And so it’s pretty easy to wake up excited.”

Amazon is shaping up to be one of the biggest forces in the online space – Apple, Google and Facebook had better watch out.

Larry Page’s challenge to slim down

Google chief executive Larry Page once got rid of his secretary because he despised meetings so much he didn’t want to be scheduled for them. Nor does he even use email. At least, that’s one of the conclusions drawn in this New York Times piece on Page and how he’s handling the company after taking over from Eric Schmidt earlier this year.

Page faces a significant problem. He needs to cut down the amount of Google’s products to focus on a select few, and do them properly. All year Page has been talking about categorising existing services into overarching themes, and there have already been dozen of services scrapped.

“The most significant change at the company is the killing of projects Mr. Page deems unworthy. One of the initiatives he has abandoned is Google Buzz, an ill-fated social networking tool.”

“Some employees find it frustrating to discover they do not fit into Mr. Page’s plans. ‘These teams are unfortunate casualties of these types of decisions,’ one said.”

Page has a big job ahead of him, though it appears Google is getting on the right track so far.

Where are Facebook’s female board members?

Facebook is speeding along towards its IPO and after seven years is still reaching new heights. But there’s a problem – so far, all of its board members are men.

Although Sheryl Sandberg has gained a lot of attention as the company’s chief operating officer, this piece on Fortune points out the obvious, that the social network lacks a female presence in its executive team.

“As the pressure mounts to address economic inequality in this country, it’s time for us to take a hard look in the mirror. While we seek to address complex problems like economic inequality, why can’t we begin to address relatively simple ones like gender representation on company boards?”

The piece, by Eleanor Bioxham, chief executive of the Value Alliance and Corporate Governance initiative, echoes complaints made in Australia that there aren’t enough women on company boards and in executive roles.

As Facebook becomes larger and prepares to list, this is an issue that it – and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg – will need to face head on.

A gallery of every Apple store, everywhere

When Apple decided to open retail stores a decade ago, industry experts said the move was a foolish one and that it would fail. But Steve Jobs and his companions put months of effort into making sure the first store was a hit – even going to so far as to source stone for the walkways in a quarry from Italy.

Now, an entire blog has been dedicated to each Apple store, with pictures of the front doors of each. It’s striking how similar they all are – a testament to the company’s insistence that each location maintain a certain aesthetic and design.

There are now well over 300 Apple Store locations and more coming every year. As Tim Cook takes over as chief executive, it will be fascinating to see whether his reign changes the look and feel of existing and new stores.