Tag Archives: Kindle

TechCrunch: Why a Kindle for newspapers won’t save them

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)

Full post at this link…

Guardian mobile; Daily Mail targets US audience on Kindle

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.

Launch round-up: USA Today, Daily Record, Economist

Round up of online launches from news sites:

  • The Economist has introduce a mobile update service for UK readers. Texting ALERT to 80801 will get you Friday morning round-up highlighting the key issues from the week’s edition.
  • The Daily Record has added to its online portfolio with a new motoring website. Car sales site www.roadrecord.co.uk features some very refined search facilities and tag clouds based on the most popular searches, a release from publisher Trinity Mirror says.

Little will be keynote speaker at the World Digital Publishing Conference

And while we’re on the theme of digital conferences in Amsterdam, news comes that the Guardian News & Media’s special adviser, Caroline Little, will be the keynote speaker at the annual World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo, to be held October 15-16.

Little was previously behind the Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive’s growth online, as their chief executive officer and publisher. She now advises the Guardian as it expands its online presence in the US.

Other speakers at the conference will include Ilicco Elia, head of mobile Europe for Thomson Reuters, Gary Clarke, director of business development for Amazon Kindle, and Frédéric Sitterlé, new media director for Le Figaro in France.

Organisers say that there are still places available at the conference.

Amazon Kindle adds Financial Times and Times

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.

Shanghai Daily available on Amazon Kindle

China’s English language newspaper the Shanghai Daily has made its e-paper edition compatible with the Amazon Kindle.

According to the Daily, the paper is the first in Asia to launch an e-paper for the device – launched in November last year –  which downloads editions wirelessly and automatically.
The title joins other papers, including the Washington Post and New York Times, which have developed editions for the Kindle.

Folio: US newspaper company, Tribune Co, launches magazine just for Kindle

US newspaper company Tribune is launching a second digital magazine exclusively for the Amazon Kindle ebook reader – a week after launching its first magazine of this kind.

A week after launching Opinionated, a political magazine aimed just at Kindle owners, Tribune has launched its second Kindle-specific title – a daily electronic magazine focused on pop culture – after partnering with PopMatters.com.

According to Folio, the magazine is targeting 18-to-34-year-olds and is available for a free 14-day free trial and $1.49 monthly subscription at Amazon.com.

Journalism.co.uk top 10 blog posts in 2007

Since its birth in July last year, the Journalism.co.uk Editor’s Blog has developed from a labour of love to, well, more love than labour. Things are starting to pay off with traffic to this area of the site showing very positive growth in recent months.

Listed below are our most popular blog posts from last year (according to number of page views calculated by Google Analytics).

  1. @BtPW: 120,000 contributions and 3 million views of single Madeleine McCann story thread
  2. Breaking news coverage on Twitter of fire in east London
  3. Outsourcing newspaper interaction on Topix
  4. Amazon Kindle – would you want to pull that out of your bag?
  5. What’s the Drudge Report worth?
  6. NY Times.com slide shows generate 7 per cent of page views
  7. New BBC homepage
  8. The Scotsman’s new website – will it be the destination Scotland needs?
  9. The NUJ and new media – what’s all the fuss about?
  10. Citizen experts not citizen journalists?

While it’s no shock to see what’s at number one (coincidentally that post was about the popularity on News Group’s news websites of a Madeleine McCann story thread) all the other top 10 contenders cover a wide range of subject matter.

However, as these posts were all written between the last week of October and the end of December, it’s likely that their popularity is in part a result of the blog’s growing following as a whole.

So, for 2008 – onwards and upwards. This growth is something we plan to build on with more features on the blog providing regular points of interest and even greater coverage of the industry online.