Spring sued Barnes & Noble yesterday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., accusing the bookseller of turning its “Alex” design into the Nook. I have embedded a copy of the complaint below, but here’s the short version:

• The Nook, which is on sale now and is supposed to ship this month, runs on Google’s Android (GOOG) platform and sports a large monochrome screen and a smaller color screen. The Alex, which doesn’t appear to be in production yet, is also supposed to run on Android and will feature two screens.
• Spring signed an NDA with Barnes & Noble (BKS) on Feb. 12 this year and says it first met with the company to show off its design for a dual-screen e-reader shortly after that.
• By May, Spring was showing the design to B&N.com president William Lynch. Spring says Lynch warned it not to work with Amazon (AMZN) because that company would “steal Spring’s unique idea.”
• The two companies talked a few more times during the summer.
• Spring says that “up until B&N’s Nook announcement on October 20…it believed that it was disclosing the confidential features of its Alex device in exchange for B&N’s implicit promise that it would seriously consider acquiring Spring’s product.”

Happy to hear from experts who know consumer electronics and/or trade-secret law, but I can’t say I’m convinced by Spring’s argument.

For one thing, Barnes & Noble would have had to work very fast to copy Spring’s design and get it to market in less than a year. Another problem with Spring’s case: As far as I can tell–based on its own complaint–Spring only showed Barnes & Noble some PowerPoint slides, which means there wasn’t much for it to copy.

Eric Kmiec, Spring’s VP of sales and marketing, told me last month that he and CEO Priscilla Lu were brought in this summer to “focus” the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm, which had previously been “playing around in R&D” and had “no real market focus.” It’s hard to believe that the bookseller had made a promise–even an “implicit” one–to buy something that didn’t exist.

Anyone have a different take? Please let me know via email or in comments, below.

nook suit –

That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.

Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, the company is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.

A so-called “over the top” service could theoretically rival the ones most consumers already  buy from cable TV operators–if Apple is able to get enough buy-in from broadcast and cable TV programmers.

That’s a big if: Apple has told industry executives it wants to launch the service early next year, but I have yet to hear of a single programmer that has made a firm commitment to the company, which has tasked iTunes boss Eddy Cue with promoting the idea.

Industry executives believe that if anyone jumps first, it will be Disney (DIS), since CEO Bob Iger has shown a willingness to experiment with Apple and iTunes in the past: In 2005, Disney was the first player to sell its programming on iTunes, via a-la-carte downloads. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest single shareholder, a result of Disney’s 2006 acquisition of Jobs’s Pixar animation studio. Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Network executives I’ve talked to are intrigued by the idea–they are eager to find new revenue streams–but are also wary, for several reasons.

Cable networks, for instance, don’t want to threaten existing relationships and subscription fees from cable providers like Comcast (CMCSA). And programmers are also worried about the effect a subscription service would have on advertising revenue: Even if the service didn’t distribute TV programs until after their initial air date, that could cut into ratings, which now measure viewership over the course of several days.

But the move to deliver TV and movies over the Web is already well under way. Netflix (NFLX), for instance, already bundles free streaming movie and television along with its disc-by-mail subscription service. iTunes and Amazon (AMZN) rent movies on a one-off basis, and Google’s (GOOG) YouTube is trying out the same thing. Meanwhile, Hulu, the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, and ABC, is figuring out how to launch a paid service that may include rentals, paid downloads or subscriptions.

So Apple’s proposed subscription service, which the company has floated in the past, is no longer a huge stretch. Says one executive briefed on the company’s plans: “I think they might get it right this time.”

First impression: There is a lot of past tense in these bios. As in Richard Dalzell, who used to be chief information officer at Amazon (AMZN), and Fred Reynolds, who used to be chief financial officer at CBS (CBS). Etc.

My gut here is that Armstrong, or his employers at Time Warner (TWX), want to bump the age/gravitas quotient, since Armstrong and most of his lieutenants are whippersnappers under 40.

Here’s the abbreviated list of elder statesmen:

Richard Dalzell: Amazon exec from 1997-2007

Karen Dykstra: Partner at Plainfield Asset Management; former CFO of Automatic Data Processing

Bill Hambrecht:  Founder, Hambrecht & Quist; IPO’d Apple (AAPL), Amazon, Adobe (ADBE), etc.

Patricia Mitchell: CEO of Paley Center for Media; former CEO of Public Broadcasting Service

Michael Powell: Providence Equity adviser, former head of the FCC; also known to some as former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s son

Fred Reynolds: 15-year veteran of CBS; retired this year

Jim Stengel: 25-year veteran of Procter & Gamble (PG), retired 2008; now runs consulting company

Jim Wiatt: Ran William Morris agency until forced out this year; last seen chatting up Google CEO Eric Schmidt about working with YouTube

Here’s the press release. More in a bit:

AOL NAMES ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

New Board Establishes Strong Foundation in Leadership and Governance with Diverse Range of Talents from Internet, Media, Marketing, Entertainment and Finance

NEW YORK, NY – October 26, 2009 – AOL today named nine members to serve on its Board of Directors, drawing on leaders with expertise in Internet, Media, Entertainment and Marketing, as well as Finance. Among the directors named are: Richard Dalzell, Karen Dykstra, William Hambrecht, Patricia Mitchell, Michael Powell, Fredric Reynolds, James Stengel and Jim Wiatt. They will join the AOL Board when the separation from Time Warner is complete, with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong serving as Chairman of the Board.

“AOL is very fortunate to have an exceptional group of proven leaders to serve on our board of directors. AOL is on a mission to help create the future of media and content and the AOL Board will play a central part in helping us focus the strategy and also operate the company with the highest ethical standards,” said Armstrong. “These individuals bring independent judgment and a dedication to building shareholder value, and they will be a tremendous resource for our company, our employees, and our future.”

Board members named to date:

Richard L. Dalzell

Richard Dalzell was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Amazon.com, Inc., until 2007. Previously, Dalzell served in numerous other positions at Amazon, including Senior Vice President of Worldwide Architecture and Platform Software and Chief Information Officer from 2001 to 2007, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer from 2000 to 2001 and Vice President and Chief Information Officer from 1997 to 2000. Prior to Amazon, Dalzell was Vice President of the Information Systems Division at Wal-Mart from 1994 to 1997. Dalzell holds a B.S. in engineering from the United States Military Academy, West Point.

Karen E. Dykstra

Karen Dykstra is a partner at Plainfield Asset Management LLC, and has been Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Plainfield Direct Inc. since 2006. Plainfield Asset Management LLC manages investment capital for institutions and high net worth individuals based in the United States and abroad. Plainfield Direct Inc. is a business development company managed by Plainfield Asset Management. Prior to joining Plainfield, Dykstra was the Chief Financial Officer of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., a provider of transaction processing and information-based business solutions, from 2003 to 2006. Dykstra serves on the boards of Plainfield Direct Inc., Gartner, Inc. and Crane Co. She received a B.S. in accounting from Rider University and a M.B.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

William R. Hambrecht

Bill Hambrecht founded and has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WR Hambrecht + Co since 1998. WR Hambrecht + Co is a financial services firm specializing in Internet and auction processes and providing underwriting and advisory services for technology and emerging-growth companies. Before that, Hambrecht co-founded Hambrecht & Quist. In 2007, Hambrecht co-founded the United Football League, which premiered in October 2009. Hambrecht has served as a director of numerous private and public companies and currently serves on the board of Motorola, Inc. He graduated from Princeton University.

Patricia E. Mitchell

Patricia Mitchell has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Paley Center for Media, a global non-profit cultural institution dedicated to the discussion of the cultural, creative and social significance of television, radio and emerging platforms, since 2006. The Center also convenes executives of global media companies on business issues and subjects of mutual interest, providing a neutral non-competitive forum. Before that, Mitchell was President and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service from 2000 to 2006, where she oversaw the digital conversion of 359 public television stations and development of a system-wide digital content initiative. For more than two decades, she was an award-winning journalist and producer, serving as reporter, anchor, talk show host, producer and executive for three broadcast networks and several cable channels. She has served as President of Time Inc. Television and CNN Productions, and was a partner in an independent production company which focused on women’s programming. Mitchell serves on the board of Sun Microsystems, Inc. She holds a B.A. in English/drama and a M.A. in English literature from the University of Georgia.

Michael K. Powell

Michael Powell has served as a Senior Advisor to Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on media, entertainment, communications and information investments, since 2005. Powell is also Chairman of the MK Powell Group, which focuses on strategic advice in the areas of technology, media and communications. Previously, Powell served as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005. He also served as the Chief of Staff of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and was an associate with the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Powell serves on the boards of Cisco Systems, Inc. and Education Management Corporation. He was also named Chairman of NTT DoCoMo’s 5th U.S. Advisory Board. Powell has a B.A. in government from the College of William and Mary and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Fredric G. Reynolds

Fredric Reynolds was with CBS Corporation and its predecessor companies from 1994 until he retired in August 2009. Reynolds was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of CBS Corporation from 2005 to 2009. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Viacom Television Stations Group of Viacom, Inc., and President of the CBS Television Stations Division of CBS, Inc. Before that, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Viacom, Inc., CBS Corporation and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Reynolds joined Westinghouse from PepsiCo Inc. Reynolds serves on the board of Kraft Foods Inc. A certified public accountant, Reynolds holds a B.B.A. in finance from the University of Miami.

James R. Stengel

James Stengel has been President and Chief Executive Officer of The Jim Stengel Company, LLC, a think tank and consulting firm conducting proprietary research, generating thought leadership and applying a new framework to drive business growth, since 2008. Stengel is also currently an adjunct marketing professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Stengel worked at Procter & Gamble from 1983 to 2008, holding a variety of positions including Global Marketing Officer from 2001 to 2008. Stengel serves on the board of Motorola, Inc. He holds a B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College and a M.B.A. from Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal School of Business.

James A. Wiatt

Jim Wiatt has been an independent consultant since June 2009. Wiatt served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the William Morris Agency from 1999 until 2009, overseeing all areas of the entertainment company, including motion picture, television, music, publishing, theater, digital, sports marketing, business development, investments and corporate consulting. Before joining WMA, Wiatt was Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of International Creative Management, a talent management company. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Wiatt is a member of the Board of Councilors of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, former Chairman and current member of the Board of the Los Angeles Police Foundation, and on the Board of Directors of the Music Center of Los Angeles.

On May 28, 2009, Time Warner Inc. announced that its Board of Directors had authorized management to proceed with plans for the complete legal and structural separation of AOL from Time Warner. Following the proposed transaction, AOL would be an independent, publicly traded company. Time Warner has indicated that it aims to complete the proposed transaction around the end of this year.

Perhaps plow it into more start-ups like Aviary, a Long Island-based design software company.

Bezos, via his Bezos Expeditions fund, has followed up an investment in the company earlier this year with another slug of cash. It’s part of a $7 million Series B round led by Spark Capital, best known in these parts as the guys who made a very big bet on Twitter, which Bezos also invested in.

If you’re sick of hearing about Web start-ups with just the vaguest sense of a business plan, Aviary may be a refreshing change. It is trying to make money by selling cheap, Web-based alternatives to popular, expensive design software, primarily the stuff that Adobe (ADBE) sells, like Photoshop and Illustrator. Granted, it doesn’t make much money yet: The company only began selling $24.95 subscriptions to its software suite earlier this year.

Down the line, Aviary also imagines it will be able to create an online marketplace where the creative types who use its software can bid on work assignments. Sort of like eBay (EBAY) meets Craigslist meets Etsy meets Amazon’s (AMZN) own Mechanical Turk.

Here’s the full press release:

Aviary Secures $7 Million in Series B Financing Led by Spark Capital

Provider of Creative Application Suite in the Cloud Makes Creation Accessible to All and Advances the Growing Digital Economy

LONG ISLAND, New York (October 26, 2009) – Aviary, Inc., a pioneer of a creative application suite in the cloud, today announced that it has received $7 million in Series B financing led by Spark Capital, with participation from existing investors, including Bezos Expeditions, a personal investment company of Jeff Bezos. With a suite of digital creation and editing software available as an online service, Aviary offers a simple and cost-effective solution for creators of all genres–from graphic design to audio editing – to express their creative talents and participate in the burgeoning market for digital goods. In conjunction with the investment, Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital will be joining Aviary’s board of directors.

“Aviary’s robust suite of online creative tools is fundamentally democratizing digital creation. Whereas the market for digital goods was once reserved exclusively for creators using proprietary desktop software, Aviary is delivering creative applications that allow anyone with a browser to participate,” said Koyfman. “And by doing so in the cloud, Aviary allows for seamless online creation, collaboration, distribution and ultimately monetization previously not possible. The Aviary model has the potential to exponentially increase the number of creators and collaborators contributing to the digital economy.”

Until now, the digital creation market has been largely dominated by desktop software solutions which are often cost prohibitive and involve complicated interfaces. By contrast, Aviary offers a powerful creative toolset in the cloud that enables professional and amateur creators alike to easily create their own digital works. The basic Aviary suite is available for free to users and includes an image editor, vector editor, audio editor and more. Users can also upgrade to the pro suite to gain commercial features such as unlimited private storage, as well as collaboration and community enhancements. For more information, visit http://aviary.com/.

“We are disrupting the status quo by eliminating the long-held barriers to digital creation and giving creators the tools they need to create, market and monetize their vision,” said Avi Muchnick, founder & CEO of Aviary, Inc. “We are extremely excited to have Spark Capital on board. Their broad-ranging internet, software and consumer experience will be a tremendous asset to us in furthering our mission to make creation accessible to creators of all genres.”

You can reach me via email (peter@allthingsd.com) or by leaving a comment below. I can’t promise any results, but I’ll do my best.

For the record: From afar, the Nook appears very similar to Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle, with a few additional bells and whistles–a second color screen at the bottom of the device for navigation, wireless connection from AT&T (T) instead of Sprint (S), Wi-Fi connectivity, etc. The most intriguing tweaks, from my perspective, are a “sharing” feature and the fact that the Nook runs on Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, which might allow for interesting upgrades over time.

But all of these features seem to be aimed at tech’s earliest adopters and not the general book-buying public that Barnes & Noble (BKS), Amazon, Sony (SNE) and everyone else is hoping to court. Recall that in the early days of music players, plenty of competitors offered competitively priced gadgets with features that Apple’s (AAPL) iPod didn’t have, and today, it’s like we never heard of them. My hunch is that we might see a similar dynamic play out with e-readers.

The publisher plans to start selling digital copies of its print titles via a yet-to-be-approved app. Condé will start with the December issue of GQ, which it will sell for $2.99 (versus a newsstand price of $4.99), but the idea is that the publisher can use the same technology to sell other issues of other magazines down the road.

Condé says the GQ digital issue will replicate the print one on a page-by-page basis, including the ads. Digital bonuses include related videos, as well as links to sites for products (clothing, music, etc.) featured in the issue.

I wasn’t able to attend Condé’s presentation this morning, so I can’t tell you how its attempt to transfer a rich glossy magazine onto a phone (or iPod touch) actually works. But for now, I’ll take the company’s word for it and assume that it’s a nice alternative to carrying around some dead trees.

The interesting question is the business model, which I think has some real potential. This doesn’t solve Condé’s core problem–its costs are too high to support its shrinking ad revenue–but it does have several things going for it.

For one, this approach reaches its potential readers where they are: I don’t want to read a magazine at my desk, and I’m far from sold on the idea of buying a specialized reader to consume it digitally. Getting it to me on my phone, which goes wherever I do, is the way to go.

It also generates some (potential) additional revenue for Condé Nast right off the bat without creating a channel conflict with its analog product line: Condé will be able to count any magazines sold via its app platform toward its audited circulation numbers, a trick that no publisher has been able to pull off with Web products so far. Meanwhile advertisers in the print publication who want to add digital links to the iPhone version will pay a premium, Condé says. And the publisher has been able to extract additional dollars from Grey Goose and Gillette, which will be “premium sponsors” of the GQ issue.

Bonus upside: Condé says the technology it has assembled for this effort should work well for future Apple (AAPL) products, like, say, its mythical tablet. “We think that the minute Apple is ready, if they ever are, to announce that they’re going forward with a tablet, that we’ll be ahead of everybody,” says Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital.

This doesn’t solve the distribution issue that Condé and other publishers have with Apple, Amazon (AMZN) and other potential digital delivery outfits: Apple, not Condé, will control the billing relationship for the app. But then again, Condé doesn’t get to interact with you when you buy a magazine at a newsstand either, so at least it’s not getting disintermediated.

The question, as always, is whether customers are willing to pay anything at all for content they’ve been getting free on the Web. I still think we’re going to end up with a small segment of people willing to pay up for specialized stuff and a very large group that are going to end up with free things of dubious value. It would be great to be proved wrong, though.

Before I get to the supposed details on this one, though, some big chunks of salt you should consume while reading: It’s hard to take Spring all that seriously at this point given that it doesn’t appear to have any track record creating mass market consumer electronics. Or much of a record at all, really.

Spring’s press release says the company was founded in 2006 and that it “delivers innovative e-reader solutions and products to the e-book market,” but aside from that release and a bare-bones Web site, Spring Design has next to no footprint, at least on the Internet.

LinkedIn says CEO Priscilla Lu started running the company in July; it also says she is still running something called ViDeOnline, Inc., “a digital media network company.” (LinkedIn also says Eric Kmiec is doing double duty, as VP of marketing at both firms). That’s about it.

Which isn’t to say that “Alex,” the gadget Spring Design says it will release “later this year” for “selected strategic partners,” doesn’t look interesting. It’s just that the e-reader/tablet wars won’t just be about specs and features but about distribution and marketing, which are partly what have given Amazon (AMZN) a huge head start and what give heavyweights like Sony (SNE) and Barnes & Noble (BKS) a fighting chance. And, of course, Apple (AAPL), if it really does enter the fray.

So. For what it’s worth: Alex is actually two gadgets in one–a conventional-looking black-and-white “reader” screen that sits atop a smaller full-color screen that runs a Web browser powered by Google’s (GOOG) mobile operating system. That looks cool, as does the notion that the two screens are connected such that a hyperlink in the “reader” screen would synch up with information supplied by the Web browser.

Also for what it’s worth: Alex looks similar, but not identical, to mock-ups we saw on Gizmodo last week. The gadget blog says it got its images and information via “a source within” Barnes & Noble, and that the book chain will show off the device to the public tomorrow.

Oh, and its coming e-reader has a name–the Que. Here are some glimpses of what it looks like in profile and dim lighting:

And here are some general descriptions of the Que, from a press release the company put out today:

With QUE, Plastic Logic is expanding the eReader category, which to date has focused on leisure reading devices and casual users. QUE is designed to simplify the multi-faceted lifestyle of the modern businessperson, and to quite literally lighten their workload. In addition to connecting its users with their business and professional newspapers, books and periodicals, QUE supports the document formats business users need (including PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents) and features powerful tools for interacting with and managing the content.

“The QUE brand stands for a premium reading experience,” said Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic. “QUE enhances business performance and gives you a competitive edge. More than an eReader, QUE means business.”

Extra thin, lightweight and wireless-enabled, QUE is the size of an 8.5 x 11 inch pad of paper, less than a 1/3 inch thick, and weighs less than many periodicals. The innovative QUE proReader features the largest screen in the industry, an intuitive touch screen user interface, and provides access to a file cabinet’s worth of documents, plus your favorite–and most necessary–publications.

Want other details? You’ll have to wait until Jan. 7, when Plastic Logic says it plans to offer “full product specifications, availability and pricing” information at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Which means Plastic Logic will miss out entirely on the upcoming holiday season, during which consumers will be presented with a slew of e-reader choices: There’s Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle, of course, and Sony’s (SNE) Reader line, an entry from iRex, and perhaps Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) device as well.

The bookseller, which will support both Plastic Logic’s device and the one from iRex, is set to show off its branded reader on Tuesday.

I’m assuming that Plastic Logic will shrug that off, given that it’s presenting the Que as a business device (you caught that in the press release, right?). But it sure would be nice to have it available sooner than later, right? Then again, Apple’s (AAPL) purported tablet device isn’t supposed to show up until next year either.

Here’s a video of an extensive demo of the then-unnamed Que Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta provided for Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last May.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091018/plastic-logic-shows-off-a-quick-look-at-its-kindle-killer-meet-the-que/feed/ 0 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091014/sony-michael-jacksons-estate-tells-apple-to-beat-it-skips-itunes-with-new-album/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091014/sony-michael-jacksons-estate-tells-apple-to-beat-it-skips-itunes-with-new-album/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:09:33 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12084 Correction: A Michael Jackson rep says that contrary to the report below, Jackson’s new album will be available on iTunes Oct. 27, though the “rest of the details are still be sorted.” My apologies for the error.

EARLIER: After Michael Jackson died, fans flooded iTunes to snap up his music. But when “This Is It,” the singer’s final work, comes out this month, they’ll have to look somewhere else: Apple’s digital store won’t be selling the album.

So says Digital Music News, citing “confidential information.” The problem, supposedly, is that Sony (SNE) and Jackson’s estate want to sell the entire double album as a set, while Apple insists that all of the music it sells needs to be available as singles.

I’m checking with Sony and Apple to confirm, but the story is a familiar one, because it’s a longstanding dispute between Apple (AAPL) and the music business. The industry, for both financial and artistic reasons, has tried to keep music bundled together, while Apple insists on selling it a la carte.

Apple usually wins these disputes: Even the stubborn iconoclasts in Radiohead eventually bowed to Steve Jobs’s will and turned their precious albums into individual songs.

If there is a clamor for the new Jackson music online, it will reportedly benefit Amazon (AMZN), whose MP3 store does offer album-only releases.

But I’m not sure how loud the clamor will be: As best I can tell, the “new” release contains only a smattering of Michael Jackson you haven’t heard before: Two versions of the title song, plus “a recently discovered spoken word poem.”

The rest? Greatest hits you can already buy, song-by-song, on iTunes.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091014/sony-michael-jacksons-estate-tells-apple-to-beat-it-skips-itunes-with-new-album/feed/ 2 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/the-coming-kindle-boom-sales-could-double-in-2010/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/the-coming-kindle-boom-sales-could-double-in-2010/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:00:45 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11806 Amazon won’t even tell us how many Kindles it has actually sold, so projecting how many it’s going to move in the future makes for particularly tough fortune-telling. But that doesn’t stop anyone from trying. The latest stab: Forrester (FORR) thinks Jeff Bezos and company will move 600,000 newly discounted units this holiday season and sell 1.8 million by the end of 2009.

Overall, Forrester predicts, U.S. consumers will purchase three million e-readers by the end of this year. That’s a bump from the analyst shop’s earlier prediction of two million. It thinks Amazon (AMZN) will claim 60 percent of the market, with Sony (SNE) taking 35 percent and the rest going to also-rans like iRex.

Have to say, I find that one a bit head-scratching: I gather that Sony’s device is supposed to have created a footprint overseas, but while I see the occasional Kindle on the subway or an airplane, I have never, ever, ever seen a Sony reader in the wild. Have you?

For what it’s worth, Forrester figures e-reader sales will double, to six million next year, pushed by media buzz along with the introduction of new devices, including the Apple (AAPL) wondertablet that everyone is convinced will show up–someday. They may even be right.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/the-coming-kindle-boom-sales-could-double-in-2010/feed/ 1 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091006/amazon-gives-the-kindle-a-price-cut-takes-it-overseas/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091006/amazon-gives-the-kindle-a-price-cut-takes-it-overseas/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:33:20 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11790 Had to see this one coming: Amazon is chopping the price on its plain-vanilla Kindle e-book reader and is introducing a new version that will allow users to download books when they’re outside the U.S.

Amazon’s (AMZN) basic Kindle will now sell for $259, down from $299–and down from $359 earlier in the year. And the new version, which will allow users to download books in 100 countries besides the U.S., will sell for $279. It will be powered by a wireless connection provided by AT&T (T); the U.S.-only Kindle will continue to use Sprint (S) for a wireless connection.

Is there a catch? Maybe. Anti-Amazon gadfly Tom [Redacted!] (Tom, what do you do when you’re not emailing us this stuff?) points out a bit of fine print on Amazon’s order page: If you take your new Kindle outside the U.S. and try to actually buy something–or simply redownload something you’ve already bought–Amazon will charge you two bucks.

Here’s the fine print, which didn’t seem to make it into the press release–or (cough) the embargoed stories: “When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items for a fee of $1.99.”

Still, it’s hard to see how Sony (SNE), whose comparable e-reader only offers a U.S. wireless connection (also from AT&T) and is scheduled to go on sale in December for $399, will be able to stay at that price point. And dark-horse Kindle competitors like iRex and Plastic Logic are going to have match or beat Amazon just to get into the race.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091006/amazon-gives-the-kindle-a-price-cut-takes-it-overseas/feed/ 0 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091002/publishers-like-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines-proposal-what-will-apple-and-amazon-say/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091002/publishers-like-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines-proposal-what-will-apple-and-amazon-say/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:32:55 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11657 Earlier this year, Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore tasked her lieutenant, John Squires, with figuring out how to put the digital “genie back in the bottle.” Here’s part of his answer: A Hulu for magazines.

Squires has spent the past few months convincing other publishers to join a new joint venture aimed at a market that doesn’t really exist yet–magazine-like publications to be delivered via e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet.

The idea: The new company, which will operate independently from the publishers that invest in it, will create a digital storefront where consumers can purchase and manage their subscriptions, which can be delivered to any device. The pitch: Control a direct relationship with consumers while gaining leverage with heavyweights like Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).

Industry executives briefed on Squires’s plan say it has been well received by Time Inc.’s peers and that several major publishers, including Hearst and Condé Nast, are expected to sign on for the JV, which isn’t scheduled to debut until 2010. No comment from Hearst, Condé Nast or Time Inc., a unit of Time Warner (TWX).

Many of the venture’s big details have yet to be hammered down. At one point, for instance, Time Inc. had explored the idea of including newspapers in the new company’s offering, sources say. The JV may also want to include a noncontent partner as an investor, as Hulu did with Providence Equity and as Vevo, the “Hulu for music” JV that Universal Music is creating with Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, plans to do. That approach is supposed to appease antitrust regulators’ worries about a group of content companies banding together.

But the rough outlines of Squires’s plan are attractive enough to publishers, who are hopeful that mobile devices like the Kindle will create a new market for them. And if that market does show up, they want to make sure they’re the ones in charge of sales and distribution. That’s been a huge problem for the music industry, whose digital sales are essentially controlled by Apple. And it has already cropped up as a point of contention with Amazon, which currently handles sales for all content delivered via its Kindle reader.

Other selling points for the JV: The ability to set standards for mobile content and the ability to integrate advertising into the publications. One thing the company isn’t supposed to do: Create an e-reader itself.

The takeaway, via a Time Inc. presentation that has circulated among publishers: “our destiny with readers, advertisers and distributors … [is] in our hands.”

Of course, there are plenty of hurdles facing the joint venture, starting with the fact that media joint ventures have a checkered record at best (though Hearst and Condé, for instance, have already partnered on Comag, a wholesale distribution company). But there are bigger problems for Squires and company. For instance:

• They’ll have to convince consumers who already have billing relationships with Amazon, Apple and other vendors to sign up with yet another service.
• They’ll  have to convince device makers to play along with the strategy, which runs counter to many of their own plans. Both Amazon and Apple, for instance, have intentionally created closed systems that give them control of both devices and distribution.
• They’ll have to create content consumers want to buy. The new product can’t simply be a digital version of the magazines they’re already printing: That’s already available on the Web, and consumers have shown almost no interest in paying for it, and advertisers haven’t fully embraced it either.

So what exactly will the JV be selling? That’s probably the most difficult question for publishers to answer, made even more difficult because they don’t know what capabilities the e-readers of the future will boast. Apple for instance, refuses to even acknowledge to Time Inc. executives that it plans to produce a tablet device, let alone provide them with specs.

But publishers feel they’ve got nothing to lose by trying. “We know that traditional magazines are going away, and that magazines on the Web don’t work,” says a publishing executive working on the plan. “But this gives us a chance to serve the reader who will pay for content, and provide advertising that really works. Can you think of a better idea?”

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091002/publishers-like-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines-proposal-what-will-apple-and-amazon-say/feed/ 4 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091001/amazon-we-wont-delete-your-kindle-books-unless-we-need-to-delete-your-books/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091001/amazon-we-wont-delete-your-kindle-books-unless-we-need-to-delete-your-books/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:10:09 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11615 After Amazon got caught deleting customers’ George Orwell novels from their Kindles this summer, the e-commerce giant apologized and promised never to do it again.

Except not really: Amazon actually said it wouldn’t yank books from Kindles again “in these circumstances.”

At the time, I thought that sounded like a lawyerly loophole designed to give Amazon (AMZN) some flexibility in the event that it did indeed want to remove things you bought from your e-reader. Now Amazon has removed some of that wiggle room–and not surprisingly, it’s doing so at the behest of its lawyers.

Amazon has reached a proposed settlement with a high school student who sued after his copy of “1984″ disappeared (really). Part of the arrangement: A much more detailed set of rules regarding disappearing books. Here they are, via TechFlash:

Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).

That’s more like, it, right? True, if you have a real case of Orwellian paranoia, you could argue that Amazon still has the right to take your stuff from your device for any reason, while arguing that it’s a network “protection” issue, etc. But if you’re really that worried about Jeff Bezos’s grasp, you probably don’t want to buy a connected device from him, period.

The entire settlement is embedded below.

KindleCase1 –

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091001/amazon-we-wont-delete-your-kindle-books-unless-we-need-to-delete-your-books/feed/ 5 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090929/how-to-market-an-iphone-app-get-apple-to-market-your-iphone-app/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090929/how-to-market-an-iphone-app-get-apple-to-market-your-iphone-app/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:31:12 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11493 There are 85,000 apps* in Apple’s iTunes store. If you’ve built one of them, how do get yours to stand out?

If you’re lucky, you can get the press to do some marketing for you. And if you’re really lucky, you can get Apple (AAPL) to do your marketing for you.

The newest set of Apple ads focuses on apps made by big brands–Barnes & Noble, Pizza Hut, Gap, Epicurious and Zagat–that can certainly afford their own promotional pushes.

And certainly those guys paid cash or some other kind of compensation for the consideration, right? Not as far as Advertising Age can discern: The trade mag notes with a bit of dismay that there isn’t any kind of application process to get into Apple commercials and that “the marketers in question didn’t request to be in the commercial at all.”

As far as I can tell, this mirrors Apple’s overall policy for iTunes, whether you’re talking about music, movies or apps: Unlike traditional retailers or even competitors like Amazon (AMZN), there’s no way to buy shelf space at Apple’s digital store. If you want Apple to shine a spotlight on your stuff, you just have to hope that someone there likes your stuff. AdAge:

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the story, but it’s clear the company looks for apps that use as many aspects of the iPhone as possible, such as sound, shaking, GPS or the camera. It also seemed to favor anything that highlights features of the newest operating system, such as in-app payment. Additionally, it appears that brands are given more credit for good user experience than whether or not they can match Apple’s own cool factor.

Pizza Hut, for instance, doesn’t have many common associations with the tech giant but its app was the first from the quick-service industry that let users place delivery orders.

*Note that Apple’s app ecosystem has grown faster than its ad agency expected; the new campaigns announce that there are 75,000 apps, but that number is 10,000 short, according to a release Cupertino put out yesterday.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090929/how-to-market-an-iphone-app-get-apple-to-market-your-iphone-app/feed/ 1 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090910/time-inc-pines-for-a-kindle-killer-if-someone-else-builds-it/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090910/time-inc-pines-for-a-kindle-killer-if-someone-else-builds-it/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:35:56 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10843 Is Time Inc. building a Kindle Killer? Nope.

My pal Owen Thomas, late of Valleywag, has published a piece for NBC’s Bay Area local site that suggests that Time Inc. wants to get into the hardware business and produce its own e-reader.

That’s something other publishers, like Hearst and News Corp. (NWS), are actually doing or have at least mulled. But multiple sources familiar with the Time Warner (TWX) unit’s thinking say that’s not the case here.

But the publisher certainly is thinking about ways to create specialized content for e-reader devices and about the best way to distribute that content.

Time Warner executives have talked about this openly for many months–see Time Inc. digital guru John Squires’s comments in June–and Thomas appears to have gotten his hands on an internal document that addresses the same topic.

Most intriguing, according to Thomas’s read of the documents: A Hulu-like spinoff that would do…something:

The presentation concludes that Time Inc. and other partners should form a new, jointly owned company. Time Inc. might spin out its Maghound service, a service which lets consumers bundle multiple magazines together into a single monthly subscription, to form the base of the joint venture. The company is also considering acquiring other businesses to jumpstart the venture.

No comment from Time Inc.

But I do know that Time Inc.’s executives have met with other publishers about collaborating on e-reader standards, etc. And I do know that Time Inc. executives  think a special version of their print products, designed specifically for e-readers, is a good idea. Most everyone I talk to in magazine publishing, in fact, believes this.

And I understand why they do. In their minds, the e-reader versions of their products function just about the same way magazines do: People pay to read them and advertisers pay to distribute their messages through them. And–this part is crucially important, from their perspective–publishers retain control of distribution and the billing relationship with their customers.

That relationship gets obliterated in Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle model: Publishers wholesale the stuff to Jeff Bezos, who deals with consumers directly. This is also one of the music industry’s big regrets about the digital age. Even though labels are selling their stuff on the Web, via Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes and others, they still don’t have direct relationships with its customers.

Which is why publishers are desperately hoping that they’ll be able to push their stuff through someone other than Jeff Bezos. On the surface, at least, it looks as though their wishes are being met: A bevy of Kindle competitors–Sony (SNE), Plastic Logic, iRex, etc.–is surfacing. Surely one or more of those will figure out how to offer publishers the terms they want.

But even if one or more of the Kindle clones succeeds, print publishers still have a core problem: They need to convince consumers that content–in any form, on any device–is worth paying for. That will work in some cases, but for many it’s going be a very hard slog.

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