Hearst Enters E-Reader Market With Skiff

Despite its silly name, magazine and newspaper publisher Hearst is confident that its new Skiff digital publishing technology will lead the charge in e-readers by the time the application/device is ready to launch.

Launching sometime early next year, Skiff-enabled devices will produce products far-and-above the similarly-proposed Time Inc. and Conde Nast digital magazines because, as Hearst media president Kenneth A. Bronfin told The Wall Street Journal, "We are going to create an entity by publishers, for publishers." [Click for MORE]

• Hearst Plans Digital Magazine, Newspaper Service

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Kindle Killers? The Boom in New E-Readers

Amazon, the online retailing giant, did more than any other company to turn the sale of digital books into a real business with the 2007 launch of the Kindle electronic reader. The company has sold an estimated 1.7 million units of the handheld device in the U.S., and it's getting ready to ship millions more. On Oct. 6, Amazon announced that it would soon begin selling Kindles — complete with a key feature that allows users to wirelessly download e-books from Amazon — in more than 100 countries...

Major newspaper and magazine publishers, which are suffering mightily from the loss of subscribers and advertisers to the recession and the Internet, are also getting involved. News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Wall Street Journal, is reportedly considering a deal with Japanese consumer-electronics giant Sony, which in 2004 introduced the first commercially viable e-reader, to use a black-and-white display technology called electronic ink (also used by the Kindle). Sony is rolling out a new family of e-readers, including a pocket-size version and one with a large screen that's geared toward newspapers and magazines. [Click for MORE]

• Nine E-Readers to Gawk At

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Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

Silicon Valley Insider says: Not that it's anything we think the New York Times Company should do, but we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Amazon: Re-kindling the Newspaper Biz?

Amazon’s second foray into consumer electronics is a slimmed-down revision of its first. The Kindle 2 ($359) is a portable, networked electronic book reader. Or perhaps it’s a kind of tablet computer that happens to be obsessed with books, magazines, and newspapers. Regardless, it’s a powerful portent.

We know that newspapers are dropping like flies due to drops in both advertising revenue (bad economy, shift to online spending, failure of print media to deliver, craigslist) and subscriber revenue, which includes readers turning to non-traditional media, like blogs and online-only publications. But many former readers of print publications haven’t abandoned those periodicals; they’ve switched to reading the same publications online that they used to read on dead trees, and advertisers pay far less for their eyeballs there. Even with the cheaper cost of publishing online, a great number of online readers for primarily print publications can’t bridge the difference in revenue from lost subscribers.

Is the Kindle (and its ilk) the bridge from commercial print/digital hybrids to sustainable all-online publications? It’s certainly a bright spot in the future for the continued persistence of both readers of perishable content and for subscription revenue. [Click for MORE]

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After Slow Start, E-Books Turn Page and Find Fans

Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels?

For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few popular items to read. But this year, in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold.

The $359 Kindle, which is slim, white and about the size of a trade paperback, was introduced a year ago. Although Amazon will not disclose sales figures, the Kindle has at least lived up to its name by creating broad interest in electronic books. Now it is out of stock and unavailable until February. Analysts credit Oprah Winfrey, who praised the Kindle on her show in October, and blame Amazon for poor holiday planning. [Click for MORE]

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New E-Newspaper Reader Echoes Look of the Paper

Plastic Logic/Sony/Kevin P. Casey for The New York Times

The Plastic Logic reader, left, has a screen the size of a sheet of paper for a copy machine. Center, Sony’s eReader; right, Amazon.com’s Kindle. The Plastic Logic device, which is yet to be named, can be updated wirelessly and store hundreds of pages of documents.

The electronic newspaper, a large portable screen that is constantly updated with the latest news, has been a prop in science fiction for ages. It also figures in the dreams of newspaper publishers struggling with rising production and delivery costs, lower circulation and decreased ad revenue from their paper product.

While the dream device remains on the drawing board, Plastic Logic will introduce publicly on Monday its version of an electronic newspaper reader: a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look — but not the feel — of a printed newspaper.[Click for MORE]

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Very Mixed Media

> New Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein asserts independence
> Are editors a luxury that we can do without?
> McClatchy to impose pay freeze
> US publisher Gannett to axe 1,000 staff posts
> Is the Kindle ebook reader becoming Amazon's iPod?
> St. Pete Times loses 200 to early retirement, avoids layoffs
> Rockford Register Star lays off 13
> Plain Dealer offers buyout to non-union workers
> Downsizing the News And Pretending to Increase Quality
> 'Arkansas Democrat-Gazette' Freezes Salaries, Hiring -- But Vows No Layoffs
> 'Buffalo News' Extends Buyouts to 10% Of Staff -- 'Modesto Bee' Offers to All
> Daytona Beach News Journal is for sale
> N.Y. Daily News looks to slash 25 jobs
> Star-Telegram initiates separation program

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