http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/25/amazon.price.algorithm/index.html?iref=NS1

Quote :

"(CNN) -- Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book. But $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) for a scientific book about flies!? This unthinkable sticker price for "The Making of a Fly" on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger. The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence's "classic work in developmental biology," Eisen writes. Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war. "What's fascinating about all this is both the seemingly endless possibilities for both chaos and mischief," writes Eisen, who works at the University of California at Berkeley and blogs at a site called "it is NOT junk." "It seems impossible that we stumbled onto the only example of this kind of upward pricing spiral." Eisen watched the robot price war from April 8 to 18 and calculated that two booksellers were automatically adjusting their prices against each other. One equation kept setting the price of the first book at 1.27059 times the price of the second book, according to Eisen's analysis, which is posted in detail on his blog. The other equation automatically set its price at 0.9983 times the price of the other book. So the prices of the two books escalated in tandem into the millions, with the second book always selling for slightly less than the first. (Not that that matters much when you're selling a book about flies for millions of dollars). The incident highlights a little-known fact about e-commerce sites such as Amazon: Often, people don't create and update prices; computer algorithms do."

Click to continue reading.

And here is the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fly-Genetics-Animal-Design/dp/0632030488

Currently listed for $10,000 new and 3 used copies for:

$158.90
$9,899.00
$11,810.92

I would buy it, but I just counted all my money and I only have $11,810.91

5/3/2011 7:55:54 PM

paper back...eww

5/3/2011 7:57:11 PM

P.S. Read the reviewers' comments for LOLs.

5/3/2011 7:57:43 PM

[old]

5/3/2011 8:05:27 PM

^

5/3/2011 8:06:34 PM

http://www.amazon.com/Lana-Lady-Legend-Truth-TURNER/dp/B000RJRWW8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304469205&sr=1-1

Hardcover - $12.95

Paperback - $900,000,000.00

5/3/2011 8:35:48 PM

lol the reviews are great

Quote :

" I was fortunate enough to buy this at the bargain price of $19,087,354 there must have been a sale because the next day it was listed at $23M. I was very pleased to find upon arrival that the book contained very useful information, however to be honest I was expecting a few more pictures for the price paid. I highly recommend this to all my associates, I have many acquaintances with children in only the best private schools who will be buying several copies. If the price has you worried, ask yourself the American question: "can you really put a price on good education?""

5/4/2011 9:56:04 AM

[OLD]
http://io9.com/#!insectoverlords/5795511

5/4/2011 11:07:13 AM

clearly this textbook was so expensive because it contains the secrets of time travel

how else do you explain 0EPII1 arriving here in the future to tell us all about his contemporary experience of ancient history

5/4/2011 11:17:03 AM

what's the point of [old]?

really?

5/4/2011 12:43:19 PM