By Siobhan O’Leary

Author Else Buschheuer

Under the unflattering headline “Operation Parasite Publishing,” the FAZ reports on the reaction to a Google Book Search roundtable held recently in Munich. The article describes the library project as a mere accessory to Google’s “gigantic offensive” to steamroll the entire book trade and become the biggest bookseller in the world.”Things change, situations change,” said Annabella Weisl, the Google Book Search Manager for Germany.

The writers at Das Literatur-Cafe want to sabotage the Ms. Twitter competition in  Germany in order to give literature a bigger voice in the world of microblogging. In a recent post, they set up a battle for the ages between @happyschnitzel — the candidate recommended by the popular blogger Sascha Lobo — and author Else Buschheuer (@elsebuschheuer). The sinister plot involves manipulating the results by finding the right script hack to vote over 3,500 times for Buschheuer. They’re doing it for the sake of Twitter, they joke, to rid it of the stigma of being a forum for people sharing useless information. As of Sunday evening, @happyshnitzel was in first place in the running for Ms. Twitter Germany, Buschheuer was in third.