Luke Pensworth
News Corporation today announced that it has acquired Skiff, Hearst Corporation’s e-reading platform designed to deliver premium journalism to tablets, smartphones, e- readers and netbooks.
The Company also announced an investment in Journalism Online, the venture dedicated to enabling newspapers, magazines and online-only publishers of quality content to collect revenue from their online readers. The financial terms of both agreements were not disclosed.
“Today’s developments underscore News Corporation’s ongoing commitment to create strong business models that support journalism at a time of great change in our industry,” said Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corporation. “Both Skiff and Journalism Online serve as key building blocks in our strategy to transform the publishing industry and ensure consumers will have continued access to the highest quality journalism.”
Google last week said it plans to begin selling e-books by this summer. They can be read on any Internet-connected device including Apple’s iPad. Google’s new e-book store will launch sometime during the first half of 2010, and will have about 500,000 titles at launch. Under Google’s payment scheme, publishers will receive about 63 percent of the gross sales, and Google will keep the remaining 37 percent.
Google also hopes to offer Editions titles through other online book retailers. In this scenario, online retailers would get 55 percent of revenues minus a small fee paid to Google, and publishers would get 45 percent, according to Read Write Web.
- Apple’s iPad is selling briskly, moving 2 million units in its first two months.
- Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader in late 2007. Although Amazon has never released sales data, some estimate 2-3 million units have been sold.
- The Barnes & Noble Nook was the first electronic book reader based on the Android platform, and features WiFi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity with a MicroSD expansion slot for extra storage. Barnes & Noble Pubit gives authors the ability to upload and sell content through B&N’s website and eBookstore.
- Borders ebooks feature the Sony reader but their new 6-inch Kobo eReader, slated to ship on June 17th, will be $150 (but no WiFi).
Mark Coker, chief executive of self-publishing service Smashwords, a site where writers can publish their own e-books, said recently that it has signed a distribution deal with Apple to put its books into the iPad iBookstore.
The ePub format has become a defacto standard for ebooks — but different e-book stores use different DRM standards on top of it. To allow cross platform compatibility, Amazon sells Kindle readers on the iTunes store, enabling iPad and iPhone users to tap into Amazon’s ebooks on their iPad. You’d think publishers would get together and agree on ONE DRM standard. But noooo.
Wikipedia has a comparison of ebook readers and ebook formats. In 2009, the global publishing business, including print and digital, was worth $71 billion, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers.