Time Inc. 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. Publishers like the idea. What will Apple and Amazon say?
Is Time Inc. building a Kindle Killer? Nope.
A report 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., are actually doing or have at least mulled. But multiple sources familiar with the Time Warner unit’s thinking say that’s not the case here.
Poor John Squires. The Time Inc. SVP seems like an affable fellow. So what has he done to deserve this impossible task–figuring out a digital strategy for Time Warner’s publishing unit? Or, to put it in Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore’s words, figuring out “how to put the genie back in the bottle”?
Time Inc. is happy to boast about its online audience, but it’s also acknowledging that Web advertising alone may not be enough these days. So it’s going to start charging readers — or at least start thinking about the notion.
In late 2008, this is what passes for good news: The lengthy layoffs at Time Warner’s publishing unit are just about over, says Executive Vice President John Squires in a conversation MediaMemo had with him. Before anyone drowns in holiday cheer, a Time Inc. executive I double-checked with stressed that Squires had qualified his statement a couple different ways. Noted. But in late 2008, this qualifies as good news.
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 »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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