The digital reading revolution is not going to look the same in developing countries as it has in the developing world, but several companies are working on ways to bring digital reading to the African continent. Read more at paidContent »
When it comes to discoverability and walled gardens, there’s a flip side. Read more at paidContent »
The U.S. Department of Justice has approved the proposed merger between Random House and Penguin, though it remains under consideration by international antitrust authorities. Read more at paidContent »
It’s only been a couple of months since Barnes & Noble downgraded guidance for its Nook business. Now the company is doing so again. Unfortunately, Nook Media is supposed to be the profitable part of the company. Read more at paidContent »
Time Warner is reportedly looking to sell off most of its magazines to Meredith, the publisher of titles like Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal. Read more at paidContent »
Users of Amazon Prime Instant Video will be able to stream more shows from CBS and Showtime, including past seasons of America’s Next Top Model, Everybody Loves Raymond and The L Word. Read more at paidContent »
Plympton, the serial fiction startup launched last year by former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, is acquiring DailyLit, a site that delivers books in installments by email and RSS. Read more at paidContent »
Netflix is partnering with DreamWorks to release its first original children’s show this December. Netflix will also add new DreamWorks films to its streaming lineup. Read more at paidContent »
Starting Tuesday, Inkling is making its free digital publishing platform, Habitat, available to everyone. The company is also introducing an enterprise product, with publishers including Pearson and Wolters-Kluwer as launch clients. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan is paying $20 million to settle the class action and states’ lawsuits remaining against it. Read more at paidContent »
New episodes of CBS’s Under the Dome will be available for viewing on Prime Instant Video four days after they’re first broadcast on CBS. It’s the first time that Amazon has offered streaming access to an in-season show. Read more at paidContent »
Google is partnering with the U.K. satellite-TV box Freesat to offer an HTML5 YouTube channel. Freesat, which is backed by the BBC and ITV, is a set-top satellite TV box that offers 180 channels and doesn’t require a monthly subscriptin. Read more at paidContent »
Social magazine Flipboard added eight new employees this week, including three former Hulu executives, bringing the company’s total head count to 77. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan, the last remaining publisher holdout in the Department of Justice’s ebook pricing antitrust lawsuit against five publishers and Apple, has decided to settle about ten months after the lawsuit was originally filed. Now Apple is the only remaining party fighting the DOJ lawsuit. Read more at paidContent »
The New York Times is considering some kind of “entry-level” product aimed at a younger audience. What would this product look like and what should it cost? As a (late) twenty-something, I felt qualified to speculate. Read more at paidContent »
Nearly 65 percent of U.S. magazines now have a digital replica edition, but those editions make up just under three percent of overall circulation. For some individual titles, though, digital growth was a lot more impressive. Read more at paidContent »
Berlin-based e-reading startup Readmill launched an iPhone version of its e-reading platform Wednesday. Users’ ebooks will now sync between their iPhones and iPads. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon has won a patent to create a virtual marketplace where users could resell digital content like apps, songs and ebooks. But it’s unclear whether such a marketplace would be legal under current copyright law. Read more at paidContent »
Apple has launched a new section of the iBookstore, “Breakout Books,” that highlights popular ebooks from self-published authors. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon plans to roll out its own virtual currency, Amazon Coins, this spring. But this is no Bitcoin. Read more »
The long-delayed Bookish, a website backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster and designed to promote book discovery and sell books, launched Monday night and is designed to be a one-stop shop for readers looking for their next book. Read more at paidContent »
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched a year-long web series, 82nd & Fifth. In 100 two-minute videos, which will be posted two at a time every Wednesday through December 25, curators talk about “art that changed the way they see the world.” Read more at paidContent »
Google has come to an agreement with the French publishers who wanted it to pay them for linking to their news content. Google agreed to create a €60 million “Digital Publishing Innovation Fund” and will also help the publishers with ad strategy. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon announced Friday that by the end of 2013, Prime Instant Video will be the only paid streaming service to offer episodes of Downton Abbey. Hulu Plus and Netflix will lose access. Read more at paidContent »
Researchers are creating software that analyzes 22 years of New York Times archives, Wikipedia and about 90 other web resources to predict future disease outbreaks, riots and deaths — and hopefully prevent them. Read more »
The Consumer Electronics Association is ditching CBS’s CNET as its CES partner. CEA CEO Gary Shapiro said he’s “shocked” that CBS “would bar all its reporters from favorably describing classes of technology the network does not like.” Read more at paidContent »
Amazon Studios has chosen its first five pilots for children’s shows, including offerings from the creators of Blue’s Clues and Rugrats. User feedback will help determine whether the shows go into production. Read more at paidContent »
As the ebook transition moves forward, Amazon should worry that Kindle is not going to be the device leading the revolution. Read more at paidContent »
Consumer review service Angie’s List is integrating Square technology into its iPhone app, allowing merchants like house cleaners, plumbers and painters to accept credit card payments in the field. Read more »
Amazon announced fourth-quarter and full year 2012 earnings report roughly in line with investor expectations Tuesday afternoon. Speaking of ebooks, CEO Jeff Bezos said, “We’re now seeing the transition we’ve been expecting.” Read more »
YouTube plans to launch paid subscriptions as early as this spring, according to a report in AdAge, and is asking media companies with large YouTube followings to submit ideas for paid channels that would cost a couple of dollars a month. Read more at paidContent »
Barnes & Noble plans to close about 20 retail stores a year over the next ten years — meaning it would have 450 to 500 stores in the next decade, down from 689 stores today. Read more at paidContent »
My Damn Channel is looking for a few hundred original comedy series to launch in 2013. The company has hired Eric Mortensen, formerly at Blip, as its director of programming and acquisitions, a new role. Read more at paidContent »
About two years after ABC pulled them off the air, “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” are coming back to life online. New weekday episodes will be available on Hulu and iTunes this spring. Read more at paidContent »
Keith Rabois, the COO of mobile payments startup Square, resigned following accusations of sexual harrassment, the company confirmed Friday. Rabois denied the allegations, describing them as a “shakedown,” and said he left the company to avoid distractions. Read more »
Magazine publishers will have to adopt more nuanced digital pricing strategies as tablets take off. They can look to book publishers — who are a lot further along in the digital revolution — for some help. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan is making some ebooks available to libraries for the first time. But the company’s two-year pilot program is limited: It only includes 1,200 older titles in the crime and mystery genres. Read more at paidContent »
“We’ve essentially taken a children’s publishing imprint, put it on the web and turned it into social software,” Mark Ury, the founder of Toronto-based storytelling site Storybird, says. Launched in 2010, the site now has over two million members. Read more at paidContent »
In a move that could assist vision-impaired users (and potentially aid smartphone development), Amazon has acquired text-to-speech and voice recognition company IVONA Software for an undisclosed sum. Read more »
In an effort to compete against Toronto-based Kobo, Amazon announced Wednesday that it is releasing the Kindle Paperwhite in Canada for the first time and will also sell the basic Kindle there. Amazon launched a Canadian Kindle store in December. Read more at paidContent »
