Amazon will open up its Kindle e-reading platform to shorter pieces of work with the launch of Kindle Singles. Writes TechCrunch:
It sounds like anyone can submit a story or piece to be included as a Kindle Single, and Amazon is using the announcement as a “call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers” to submit writings.
paidContent:UK’s Robert Andrews picks up a Radio 5 Live discussion on e-readers and shares his own view: that single function readers are no magic pill for publishers.
An ‘e-reader’ is a mere neologism – conceived by those who seek to replicate an old, physical medium in modern, electronic form. But newspapers have spent the last 15 years divorcing their content from the physicality of their origin medium – not only does charging on what looks like a plastic newspaper fly in the face of that strategy, it’s also going to be rather difficult when few mechanisms beyond Kindle’s Whispernet truly exist – in the rush to build e-readers, manufacturers are all pulling in their own direction.
According to a Reuters report, Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, will now be sold in a further 100+ countries, including China.
While significant for the digital book market, the move is also of interest to publishers investing in e-editions or e-reading technologies.
Many high profile newspapers are available on a Kindle: the Financial Times, Times, Daily Mail and USA Today to name but a few.
This expansion could see new news clients for Amazon; potentially more Kindle-specific editions from publishers, such as that launched by Tribune Co.
A wider Kindle audience worldwide could also help publishers build their reach and possible revenue streams.
News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch is now convinced that ‘it is possible to charge for content’ online given the success of paid-for business news on the Wall Street Journal, he said last night.
Any pay model would be tested on one of the group’s stronger titles, he added.
Murdoch also described Newsgroup’s interest in developing its own e-reading or digital paper device.
At the FIPP World Magazine Congress this week Guardian Media Group’s Carolyn McCall suggested Guardian.co.uk could also start charging for specialist areas of the site.
Responding to this week’s scheduled launch of a new large screen version of Amazon’s Kindle (an e-reading device), this TechCrunch post says newspapers should not pin their hopes on this new technology.
“It’s not the ‘paper’ part of newspaper that’s the problem, it’s the ‘news’,” writes MG Siegler, adding that Kindle’s new launch could do well in the textbooks market.
(A post on BNET responding to TechCrunch suggests the site hasn’t fully disclosed its own investments in a mobile computing device)
Guardian.co.uk will be available as a new mobile site from March, a release from the publisher has confirmed.
Specific versions of m.guardian.co.uk will be available for iPhone and Blackberry handsets will be released. The decision to launch a dedicated mobile site follows growing mobile traffic to the Guardian, Adam Freeman, commercial director, said in the statement.
Distribution deals for mobile content have been signed with 3 and Vodafone. The site itself will be ad-supported.
Meanwhile the Daily Mail is planning to make its content available on the US version of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, according to a report from NMA – part of a push to capitalise on the Mail’s growing US audience. The site previously told Journalism.co.uk that its commercial focus remains on the UK, but perhaps this marks the beginnings of an overseas push.
Content from titles to be made available on Plastic Logic e-reader – to be launched end of 2009.
Round up of online launches from news sites:
Using the same technology as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s e-reader, the Plastic Logic device has a larger screen size built for newspapers.
The Financial Times and the Times are now available as e-newspapers on Amazon’s Kindle.
The partnership means electronic and automatically updated editions of the papers will now be accessible via the Kindle.
Editions of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and the Irish Times are also available on the device.
Earlier this year the US Tribune Co. launched a magazine specially designed for the e-reader.