Book publishers itching to raise the prices on their e-books should pay attention to the music labels, which raised the prices on their downloads last spring. Consumers, it turns out, like paying less for stuff.
A former Universal Music executive, now headed to Yahoo, explains concisely why his former employer and the other big guys are just playing out the string: CD sales are wasting away, and the digital boost they were counting on simply isn’t big enough.
Barnes & Noble’s e-reader entry was supposed to have one big advantage over the Kindle–you could buy one at the retailer’s stores. But it has been a long time coming, and in the meantime, you may have heard about another compelling e-reader heading to market.
Apple has some 140,000 apps for its iPhone users. People who use phones with Google’s Android operating system have much less choice.
But here’s a consolation prize: Android users do get to use the coolest app in New York City. At least, according to the NYC Big App competition, which awarded its Grand Prize last night to WayFinder NYC, an Android-only app.
Here’s another publisher publicly throwing its weight behind Apple–and against Amazon–in the e-book pricing war. Hachette Book Group says it will pursue the “agency model” for pricing e-books: It sets retail prices and the retailer gets a 30 percent cut. In more practical terms, this means Hachette’s titles will be getting more expensive, and the rest of the industry will be following suit.
It’s a pretty standard chain of events: New platform opens up, investors try to attach themselves to developers who want to exploit it. Thus, the AppFund, which says it will invest up to $500,000 in iPad-specific apps.
If you’re waiting for Apple’s iPad to rescue the magazine business, you may have to wait a very long time indeed. But the present-tense magazine industry–the ink-and-paper version everyone has left for dead–may be limping its way to a recovery.
Amazon caved to Macmillan’s demands on e-book pricing, and now the online retailer is set to give News Corp.’s HarperCollins a new deal too, says Rupert Murdoch. Meanwhile, don’t hold your breath waiting for Conan O’Brien on Fox.
Meet another set of investors funding New York-based Web start-ups: Lerer Media Ventures, run by Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer and his son, Thrillist co-founder Ben Lerer. Their backers include familiar names like Ron Conway and Arianna Huffington.
Condense a Steve Jobs pitch into 180 seconds and he sounds a lot like Billy Mays. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
Amazon caves after two days, agreeing to Macmillan’s demands to sell its e-books at a higher price–otherwise known as the Apple iPad pricing plan. In doing so, the world’s biggest e-commerce player has made a tacit admission that e-book prices will rise across the board.
Apple has yet to sell its first e-book, but it is already engaged in a bruising battle with Amazon for control of the market. The most recent salvo: Amazon has stopped selling all books from MacMillan, apparently in response to the publisher’s plans to sell its books at a higher price point through Apple.
Interesting footnote in AT&T’s earnings this morning: The carrier everyone loves to hate has quietly become the carrier of choice for e-book readers from Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble. They generated a million new subscriptions last quarter, and now the iPad will bring more.
Investors took a look at the Apple iPad yesterday and decided they didn’t really know what to think. Not a terrible conclusion: We won’t really know what this thing can do until we see the software Apple’s partners deliver.
Whatever happened between Google and Yelp is now officially kaput: Instead of selling the entire company to the search giant, Yelp’s owners will be taking up to $100 million in funding from private equity shop Elevation Partners–who had been trying to get a deal done with the local reviews site for months.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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