It's no surprise to see a "newspaper of record", The New York Times, make assertions like "iTunes may be Apple's most profitable business". But it's a surprise to see the NYT add a later comment to the web version of its article says "whoops, we might be wrong here".

The NYT claims that iTunes is massively more profitable than Apple claims. No real surprise, as it's a given in any music-industry business conversation that anyone claiming to have a bumper year is near bankruptcy and anyone claiming to be poor is about to buy themselves a new Porsche. What's interesting, then, is that the NYT - hedging at the end aside ("ooh, did I miss the server costs?") - claims that iTunes has margins that eBay and Amazon would kill to have.

If debunking of popular businesspeople amuses you, incidentally, this book will give you a big charge: investigative journalist Tom Bower on Richard Branson. Bower can make even a quiet walk down the street sound like an especially dirty night in a leather bar, but this is undeniably a big kick in the teeth for Branson's self-made image as a humble, honest man of the people.