Kelly Clarkson has been receiving a lot of flak for making an official 2012 presidential race endorsement earlier this week– that trophy going to Rep. Ron Paul. And while he had to fight a lot of vitriol from opponents, it appears Rep. Paul fans are displaying their trademark loyalty to her in record sales– or, at least, she reminded America that she exists enough to score a 192% rise in sales in the past 24 hours on Amazon.com.

A reality series that aired in the U.K. on the BBC and in the U.S. on the Travel Channel faces charges producers faked scenes and deliberately mistranslated interviews in an attempt to portray members of an Amazonian tribe as “sex-obsessed, mean savages.” The charges, reported today in The Guardian, involve a six part series called Mark & Olly: Living with the Machigenga, which was shot in the Amazon rainforest. According to the Guardian, “the show has been called “staged, false, fabricated and distorted” by Dr Glenn Shepard, an anthropologist who has worked with the tribe for 25 years and speaks their language fluently, and Ron Snell, who grew up with the tribe as the son of US missionaries and also speaks their language.”

Unless you live under a rock, its safe to assume you’ve heard about LivingSocial offering an amazing Amazon.com deal yesterday. In case you didn’t, for $10 you got a $20 Amazon Gift Card. Free money? Sign me up. And people did. 1,301,296 people to be exact. The better part of this deal, was if you [...]

In the battle of the presidential memoirs, George W. Bush is gaining some significant ground on his predecessor, selling almost as many copies of Decision Points in two months as President Bill Clinton sold of his in two years. Why would Americans be so eagerly purchasing the product? One suggestion on MSNBC is that, maybe, people just hate Bush more.

So, how many hours did you spend returning bad sweaters and weird gadgets the past few days? A new technology Amazon just patented could have saved you all that time (and them a whole lot of money). The patent is for a system in which users can specify certain details and any gift being sent to you that meets the requirements will be stopped and you will be notified so that you can change them before it’s even sent. Hooray! Now we can all feel even more awkward when Grandma asks how we like that shirt she sent.

Even as websites for Paypal and Mastercard suffer “Anonymous” blowback for closing Wikileaks accounts, Amazon UK has made a Kindle version of the latest document dump available for download. Ironically, the same 4chan hackers who attacked Mastercard and Paypal (and Sarah Palin?) have promised a similar attack on Amazon.com today, in retaliation for the site shutting down Wikileaks’ US server for what it called a “Terms of Service” violation. It seems that Amazon, Paypal, and Visa can now have their cake and eat it, too.

Well this gives new meaning to the term “cyber Monday.” Multiple sources are reporting that US based, multinational online shopping site Amazon.com is allowing its massive server capacity to assist the technology company that is serving WikiLeaks.org, particularly in light of an apparent hacker attack (known as DDos) that brought the site to its knees. Updated!

Google is fighting battles on almost every front: social networking, mobile operating systems, web browsers, office apps, and so on. Much of this makes sense, inasmuch as it is strategic for them to dominate or commoditize each layer that stands between human beings and online ads. But while they are doing this, they are leaving their core business vulnerable, particularly to Amazon.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank‘s unauthorized biography of Glenn Beck, Tears of a Clown, came out with a splash earlier this month, but reports tell Politico the interest has not been sustainable in most bookstores. Judging from these numbers, seems like people would rather read about Glenn Beck straight from the source.

Facebook may have been down yesterday, but its cofounder Mark Zuckerberg is up. The 26-year-old social-media whiz kid has been listed in the Forbes 400 as the 35th richest person in America, shooting past older media barons like Newscorp’s Rupert Murdoch, who is ranked 38th, and Apple’s Steve Jobs, who is ranked 42nd. Software kingpin Bill Gates of Microsoft still reigns on top of the Forbes list of rich people.

Turns out Glenn Beck may be good for President Barack Obama‘s business. Book business anyway. Last night during his show opener Beck used Obama’s 2004 memoir Dreams From My Father — which recounts Obama’s youth being raised by his single mother, as well as his absent father, whom he only met once — to illustrate that the president’s ‘socialism’ was likely inspired by his father.

Amazon.com sent out word today that the sale of electronic books (books in digital form that can be read on devices like the Kindle or iPad) have outsold hardcover books for the past three months. Presumably softcover books are still holding onto their “most purchased” title, but it may only be a matter of time before they as well fall to the digitized onslaught. This is a sad day for Luddites everywhere. And a happy one for folks who hate paper cuts.

In the past few weeks, the Pakistan government has been doing everything in their power to keep anti-Islam content from getting seen on the internet. Their latest step, announced earlier today and reported by the Associated Press, will be to begin monitoring seven major websites including Google, Yahoo and Amazon as well as all out banning 17 smaller sites.

Between the early 2009 launch of his program and November of last year, Glenn Beck has gone from mere political commentator to one of the print business’s biggest trendsetters. This week, he’s done it again: 24 hours after dedicating an episode of his program to F. A. Hayek‘s The Road To Serfdom, the 1944 book skyrocketed to #1 on both Amazon.com‘s and Barnes and Noble‘s bestseller lists.

A colleague (who is handsome and wise) recently discovered an old Media Metrix report delineating “World Wide Web Audience Ratings” for December 1998. It’s a remarkable study, categorizing thousands of sites and conglomerated web companies. all of the component elements, but it’s unrecognizable. As though they’re all brands made up for movies.

Rework authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson were thrilled, but not satisfied, that their book is currently in the #4 spot on the list (through previously taking the bronze). So, in brainstorming ways to publicize their irreverent career guide, they turned to the author of the book above them on the list and asked themselves, “What would Karl Rove do?”

RedState.com is currently focusing their rage on Florida governor and Republican senate candidate Charlie Crist, who quipped to Greta Van Susteren on On the Record last night that his opponent, Tea Party darling Marco Rubio, had spent upwards of $100 on a “back wax” using the State Republicans’ credit card. Christmas is now coming early for Charlie, too, who is getting massive amounts of expensive depilatory wax, courtesy of Erick Erickson and company.

Turns out we are not the only ones paying attention to Glenn Beck’s immediate influence on the world of book sales. Glenn Beck apparently also has an eye on the rocketing Amazon rankings of the books he recommends (even the evil ones!). Beck is the new master of literary top ten list.

Sometime Friday, Amazon stopped directly selling all books put out by the publisher Macmillan, due to a disagreement over future pricing of e-books. Let’s be clear, it’s not just that Amazon wasn’t selling Macmillan books on the Kindle. Amazon was no longer directly selling any books from this publisher, though one can still buy them new and used on the website through third-party vendors. This is a dispute with massive consequences for publishers — and it’s not great for Amazon, either. So why did both companies find themselves in this mutually destructive game of chicken?

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that HarperCollins is in talks with Apple to bring e-books to its much-hyped Tablet, set to be revealed (fingers crossed) on January 27th. But even more interesting? The ebooks “would have added features.” This implies video. And color. And pictures. And social media. In books!

Yesterday news broke that Sarah Palin had completed her memoir “Going Rogue” in just four months and that it would hit bookshelves November 17, far ahead of its original Spring pub date. Today the memoir has gone rogue on both the Barnes & Nobles and Amazon bestseller lists. Dan Brown never saw it coming.

Pretty much everyone – from Politics Daily to BusinessWeek to the LA Times to textbook companies and every techie publication known to man – is anticipating the release of a Kindle-esque Apple tablet, or at least an announcement of it. Perhaps Steve Jobs spoke too soon last year when he told the New York Times that the Kindle would inevitably fail because Americans just don’t read anymore.