More to come. 

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U.S. consumers are continuing to base their phone-buying decision on how well the device sends text messages, which is leading to an increase in the number of Qwerty keyboards and touchscreens sold, reports NPD Group, a market research firm. “Regardless of whether they opt for a data plan, consumers want richer user interface options; the humble keypad is losing in the race to optimize a handset’s surface,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of NPD. Release.

In fact, in the fourth quarter of the top 10 best-selling mobile phones, all came equipped with a touch screen, a QWERTY keyboard, or both:

1. RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) BlackBerry Curve (all models)
2. LG (SEO: 066570) enV3
3. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone 3GS
4. Apple iPhone 3G
5. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid
6. LG enV Touch
7. RIM Blackberry Tour
8. Samsung Intensity
9. Samsung Solstice
10. Samsung Impression

The only phone in the top 10 that had both a Qwerty keyboard and a touchscreen was the Motorola Droid, which despite being launched during the middle of the quarter, rose to the fifth most-purchased consumer mobile phone in the U.S. Meanwhiel, LG and RIM all declined in unit share. In Q4, 46 percent of phones sold had Qwerty keyboards, compared to 31 percent in the year-ago period, and even less—24 percent—had touchscreens.

—Nexage/CPX Interactive: The mobile ad technology developer Nexage has launched a new solution that lets online ad networks source inventory simultaneously across mobile web sites and mobile apps. The ad network CPX Interactive is Nexage’s first customer for the service, called AdMax.

—O2/Shazam: And another sign of more contextual ads coming to mobile. Mobile operator O2 is sponsoring Shazam’s iPhone app to promote its priority ticket service: customers will be served ads for pre-sale ticket offers for events at O2-sponsored venues, based on music they have tagged through Shazam’s iPhone app. The ads are being delivered by 4th Screen Advertising, as part of a wider deal between itself and Shazam, originally made in October 2009.

—WorldMate/LinkedIn: The travel-planning app that claims to have 5 million customers has integrated with LinkedIn’s APIs, so that users can access their LinkedIn contacts while planning their travels. WorldMate says that this makes it the first BlackBerry app for LinkedIn; it’s also available for iPhones, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) devices and Windows devices.

It’s not exactly a great leap from publishing an iPhone app to offering one on the soon-to-be-released iPad - not only will the former will run on the latter; the skillset for developing the latter won’t be significantly different.

So publishers who have already found a degree of incremental revenue from iPhone are now looking for another increment from its bigger brother…

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, whose newspaper shifted 70,000 downloads of its £2.39 iPhone app in its first month despite the company opposing web paywalls in principle, tells Reuters...

“That’s not a transformative thing, but it is a signal that people are prepared to pay on mobile. It’s perfectly possible that the iPad, if we get the right functionality and design, could produce interesting, significant revenue streams.”

“If we can make people pay on mobile, then we should - what I’m against is a universal paywall that puts all your content behind.”

Disclosure: Our publisher ContentNext is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media.

When Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) announced its Nook e-reader in October, the ability to pursue a dual in-store and online sales strategy appeared to be one of the clear advantages it might have over Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). But, as we first reported then, the chain didn’t plan to sell Nooks to go in all its stores for the 2009 holidays—and, as it turned out, the combination of demand and distribution issues kept the device from store shelves. Instead, most people who bought Nooks at B&N stores were placing online orders for delivery weeks or months into the future—not buying them for same-day use. I watched in one store as someone changed his mind pre-Christmas about buying a Nook because he wouldn’t get it until February.

But B&N says that’s all about to change now, at least in some stores. Hoping to get a retail boost from Valentine’s Day, the chain plans to stock most stores with Nooks by mid-week—even promising to update an in-store locator chart daily starting Wednesday. The popular themes in response to the news? Too little, too late or Nook meets Godzilla aka iPad and inevitably loses. Both are short-sighted.

Barnes & Noble stumbled with software and distribution but the Nook is still a potentially appealing device, especially to those more interested in a dedicated e-reader than a multi-purpose tablet. Fanboys, fangirls and early adopters may not flinch at the iPad’s price range but $259 leaves wallet room for a Kate Spade cover and a lot of books. In-store sales should also help when it comes to competing with the Kindle, which can only be ordered online. Amazon plays matchmaker for people who want to try a Kindle; B&N has working hands-on displays in every store. If people can try, buy and start reading the same day—or get instant gift gratification—Nook should have an edge, at least for the next few months. 

—Software update: As for the software knocks, B&N says users should see improvements with new release Nook v1.2. Devices are being updated automatically over the air this week or users can download it themselves. Among the promised changes:  Better in-store access to free WiFi, easier to find which books can be shared, and, a personal favorite that covers a multitude of sins, “overall system improvements and battery optimization.”

—Keeping connected: About that enhanced WiFi access. B&N wants owners to see the Nook as an in-store device, encouraging users to bring their devices into stores for access to exclusive content or offers through the store’s free WiFi. That push begins in earnest now with a free short story, a cupcake recipe, a 10 percent discount on CDs if the user shows the clerk the Nook, and more.

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• The E-Book Marketplace: Does Anybody Really Know What Price It Is?
• How Do E-Readers Stack Up With iPad In The Mix? Use Our Chart As A Guide
• Nevermind iPad, Kindle's Flame To Still Burn Strong
• B&N Rush To Market With Nook Comes At A Cost
• First Take: Nook Ready To Try; Buy? Not So Fast
• Barnes & Noble Won't Sell Nook To Go In All Stores
• Barnes & Noble Tries To Stake E-Reader Claim With Wi-Fi, 3G And A Dash Of Color; On Sale Nov. 30

Location-based social net Foursquare is on a roll when it comes to netting high-profile media partnerships. The latest is restaurant reviews guide Zagat, the NYT reports. By hooking up with Foursquare, Zagat may be hoping to bid up its own cool cache. The reviews site’s image suffered a bit among media industry observers when it failed to find a buyer who would meet its for-sale price. The timing of this partnership comes right on the heels of deals of Foursquare’s deals with NBC Universal’s Bravo and Canadian commuter daily Metro.

The arrangement resembles the one Foursquare struck with Metro last month. Under that deal, Metro users recommend “tips” to other Foursquare users. With Zagat, users will also provide content to Foursquare, as opposed to just getting assigned a marketer’s branded “badge” when a user checks into a spot that’s marked by one of its media partners.

The Foursquare/Zagat feed serves as a platform for users to share recommendations of menu items with other members. Foursquare has been hitting stratospheric levels of hype the past several months, but the flurry of media arrangements it has struck in recent weeks and upcoming deals that are still in the works have made even the most cynical observers consider that there may actually be a serious business model at work here. The collaboration with Zagat could help Foursquare refine its business model and challenge directory sites like Yelp, whose reviews and recommendations app is also fairly popular.

Zagat is also bringing another content idea to Foursquare’s table. The restaurant reviews aggregator is creating a “Meet the Mayor” interviews series on its site, highlighting individual users who have signed in to a place more times than other users. Zagat hopes that the cross-promotion will drive users to its own site.

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• Location-Based Social Net Foursquare Partners With Bravo
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• Video Interview From DLD: Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare

Huawei, a China-based wireless infrastructure and handset maker, will pre-install Opera Software’s mobile browser on a range of mobile handsets. Opera said in a release that Huawei will use the Opera Mobile 10 browser, which is developed for OEMs and operators. Jiang Huabing, Head of Huawei’s handset and R&D department, said: “China represents unique growth opportunities in the mobile market, and we hope that with the addition of Opera Mobile to our handsets, more of China will soon be online.”

The two companies did not say how many handsets will be shipped with the Norwegian-based browser, but last year Huawei shipped 30 million mobile phones. Opera has other reseller partnerships, including with AT&T in the U.S.

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• Updated: Opera Acquires Mobile Ad Net AdMarvel For $8 Million
• Lars Boilesen Succeeds von Tetzchner As Opera Software's New CEO

Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel, which already owns the Boost and Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) brands, maybe mulling whether to buy MetroPCS Communications so that it can dominate the prepaid wireless space.

The idea was floated by Greg Miller, an analyst for Collins Stewart in a note he wrote to investors, reports Bloomberg. He reasoned: “It helps Sprint continue to consolidate its position in the increasingly competitive prepaid marketplace in densely populated major metro centers while allowing MetroPCS shareholders an avenue to continue to participate in the market from a position of greater strength.”

Miller’s theory comes only a week after reports surfaced that Leap Wireless had hired Goldman Sachs to look into selling the company or merging with rivals. In that scenario, MetroPCS was considered a likely candidate. Miller did not address the likelihood of Sprint doing a complete roll-up, where it would buy both MetroPCS and Leap.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has lowered its “equipment recovery fee” to $150 from $350 when customers drop its Nexus One phone before their contract with T-Mobile USA officially expires. The change occurs just after the FCC formally sent letters to various operators and Google about wireless early termination fees. In this case, the Google fee is a bit confusing because it is in addition to the $200 fee that T-Mobile charges when users break a contract early.

The WSJ reports that a Google representative said the company had been working with T-Mobile to lower the equipment fee. The change was posted officially on Google’s terms of service page for the Nexus One. While the fee was changed, Google was clear that it doesn’t represent a change in its financial philosophy. It said. “We make no profit from commissions from operators or from equipment recovery fees, and our recovery fees are based on operator charges to Google for early termination of service,” the company said in a statement.

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• Google Drops The Price Of The Nexus One As Devices Flood eBay
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SurfKitchen, the UK provider of storefront services to carriers, has launched its first deployment in the U.S. with T-Mobile USA. SurfKitchen has integrated with T-Mobile’s web2go portal on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 7510, a low-end device, as a complement to the high-end bets T-Mobile is taking with Google’s Android. Release.

While the launch is limited to one phone, the deal is significant for SurfKitchen as it tries to help the carriers compete with app stores from other handset makers and providers. SurfKitchen’s CTO Dave Evans told mocoNews: “It’s pretty exciting and indicative of the overall ecosystem. We are seeing carriers be much more aggressive with what they do with app shops, as a way to differentiate themselves from OEMs. We are focusing how we support that.”

Last year, SurfKitchen decided to refocus its efforts more on application services as Apple’s iPhone took off. One such deployment was with the UK’s Orange, which wanted to create an application store to compete with Nokia’s Ovi, Google’s Android and other channels. The Orange store runs on a wide variety of phones, including Java, Android, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and BlackBerry.

Evans said while carriers find it important to invest in these services, the economic downturn over the past year hasn’t helped. Also, carriers are feeling pressured to invest heavily in network infrastructure, leaving less cash for other projects.

Still, he believes SurfKitchen is prospering. The privately held company has 55 employees and is profitable on a quarter-by-quarter basis. It has not raised capital since 2004, and has no immediate plans to do so. Contrast that with one of its U.S.-based competitors, Motricity, which is trying to raise $250 million in a public offering. Evans: “There’s a lot of opportunity. This will be a $13 billion marketplace in 2012. We continue as a viable concern, but I think we’ll see the number of players consolidating and potentially some will disappear over the next few months.”

If only the rest of Electronic Arts’ businesses could be doing so well ... During the company’s earnings call Monday, executives said that the company’s digital business was “growing very rapidly and (is) profitable” (Executives had said during a call last quarter that digital was in fact now the most profitable part of EA’s business).

The digital business is now expected to reach at least $750 million in sales next year, up from about $575 million this year. By contrast, executives said that they are not counting on much—if any—growth in the company’s traditional “packaged goods” business, which should account for about $3 billion in sales.

But executives dismissed suggestions that the growth of online and mobile gaming was cutting into sales of traditional video games, saying that there was no data that indicated that gamers were spending less time with their consoles. Some other highlights:

—Digital bragging rights: Executives said that EA—which is the top mobile games publisher worldwide—was now responsible for seven of the top 11 games on the iPhone. Via the company’s acquisition this fall of social gaming company Playfish, EA also had two of the top 10 games on Facebook.

—New digital titles: EA will release a “major” massively multiplayer online game next year. As part of that effort, the company says it will incur “significant development costs.” Executives also pledged that every release the company puts out this year will have an online component of some sort.

—Madden NFL coming to Facebook? EA Sports President Peter Moore said earlier today that the company was planning on bringing its blockbuster Madden NFL to Facebook. During the call, executives wouldn’t be specific about that, with CFO Eric Brown saying, “we don’t have specific titles to call out here.” But he acknowledged that a goal of buying Playfish was to “over time” launch EA titles on other platforms.

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• EA Will Bring Madden NFL To Facebook
• Electronic Arts Posts Jump In Digital Revenue—But Overall Sales Fall

»  The iPad hasn’t even shipped yet and the predictions already have Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) cutting prices if sales are slow. [MarketBeat]

»  Since the hype lessened over the past few weeks, less consumers are enthusiastic about the iPad. [iPhone Alley]

»  The lowdown on Samsung’s new platform/OS, Bada. [Mobile Entertainment]

»  Leaked photos of the upcoming Verizon HTC Incredible. [PocketNow]

»  Linux originator Linus Torvalds swoons over the Nexus One. [Engadget]

With sales of traditional video games down, Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) continues to look (so far unsuccessfully) for its digital business to make up the gap. The video game giant said that its digital revenue reached an all-time high of $152 million during its third fiscal quarter, up 30 percent compared to the same period a year ago; mobile revenue was up 14 percent year-over-year to $57 million.

That growth, however, was unable to compensate for declining sales of the company’s traditional video games. Overall sales dropped 25 percent to $1.243 billion, while the company posted a loss per share of 25 cents. Both figures were slightly above analyst expectations, although those had been dropped after the company slashed its guidance last month, citing weakness in Europe. (The company did, however, manage to cut its net losses to $82 million from $641 million during the same period a year ago).

Unnerving for Wall Street apparently was the company’s outlook, which was below expectations (via Barrons). The company’s stock is down more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.

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Mobclix has partnered with Nielsen to be able to deliver more targeted mobile ads, giving it some name-brand recognition to stick out from all the competition.

The deal allows the ad network aggregator to resell Nielsen’s research products, which categorize consumers into roughly 150 segments based on a user’s age and gender as well as location, or other more lifestyle-like qualities, such as spending power and tech awareness, reports GigaOm. The benefit of this partnership is that typically more relevant ads are more successful and therefore fetch a higher price. Mobclix says there’s also a benefit to developers: they’ll be able to tell what kinds of apps resonate with their audience, and how they can increase user engagement, downloads and better rankings.

The brand-name recognition that Nielsen gives to Mobclix is equally important, as the mobile advertising space heats up and there’s massive companies to compete against, like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). In addition, there’s not just competition from within mobile advertising. One of the biggest challenges is to convince brands and advertisers to leave other mediums for mobile. With more relevant data, that argument might be easier to win. For example, eMarketer said roughly $416 million was spent on mobile advertising in 2009, compared to the nearly $24 billion spent online, the $51 billion spent on TV ads, and the $38 billion spent on newspaper ads.

Mobclix did not address privacy concerns about targeting end users, but you can assume that the information that Nielsen is providing to Mobclix is in aggregate and would eliminate any personally identifiable information [Note: The company confirmed the information is in aggregate.]. Whether that’s good enough for Apple, it’s unclear. Last week, the company warned developers that if their app uses location-based information, the information must be put to “beneficial” use, or else “your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”

Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which shook up the e-mail industry when it integrated chat with e-mail, is now trying to catch up to its rivals by letting Gmail users share status updates. The WSJ reports that Google will soon add a “new module that will allow Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with.” If it catches on, that could potentially add a new force to the Twitter-dominated microblogging world, considering that Gmail had 132 million unique users worldwide as of last March (the last figures I could quickly get my hands on).

Unlike with chat, however, Google is actually following its two biggest e-mail rivals—Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)—in letting users share and track status updates. (Big caveat here: We don’t actually know all of what the feature involves or what it will look like; we’ve asked and will update if we hear back).

But Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) added social networking-like features—which let users share activities around the web, along with status updates, called ‘notes’—to Windows Live way back in November 2008. And Yahoo announced in August that users of Yahoo Mail would be able to share status updates.

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• Microsoft Finally Integrates Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail
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Mobile phones in the future will translate languages in real-time, enabling people from around the world to understand each other—that is, if Google (NSDQ: GOOG) can figure out a way to do it.

The internet giant, turned mobile phone inventor, thinks it can make a fairly operational system within a couple of years, reports the UK’s Sunday Times. The process will meld together its text translation services on the computer with its voice-recognition technology on the mobile phone. The end product will likely be inundated with challenges, considering that both services are fairly buggy and inconsistent today.

“We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time,” said Google’s head of translation services Franz Och. “If you look at the progress in machine translation and corresponding advances in voice recognition, there has been huge progress recently.”

One reason the mobile phone may be more accurate is because typically only one person uses it. Over time, the technology could get a better feel for your accent and pitch, Och said.

The story did not go into how Google would make money from the services—both the text translation and voice recognition is free. As with both of those services, the accuracy seems to be just enough to get the job done. Whether that will be true with live conversations, who knows?

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Ventures is leading a round of funding in social music startup TuneWiki; HillsVen Capital, Novel TMT, Benchmark Capital and Intellect Capital Ventures (the venture fund of Nordic phone company TeliaSonera) also participated in the funding. TuneWiki, which started out as a desktop app and site nearly two years ago, has since also launched several mobile apps for Android, the iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian, which have gained significant traction.

Last summer, the company said its app for the Blackberry—which lets user share their music selections on Facebook and Twitter, get track lyrics, and see what other people near them are listening to—was now the most-downloded app in the BlackBerry app store; TuneWiki’s Android app, which has similar features, was also a winner in the Android Developer Challenge.

TuneWiki says it will use the new cash to “expand and enhance its product offerings for leading mobile platforms and the internet.” It isn’t saying how much it raised, although it had previously raised $3.3 million in a first round of funding from Benchmark Capital.

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The legal guys over in Finland must be clocking up a lot of overtime these days: on top of the Apple ITC battle over patent infringements, now Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has another legal wrangle over in the U.S., this time over a class-action lawsuit around delays and discounts in its line of handsets.

The news comes as Nokia says it will be laying off 285 people as it “develops” one of its plants to boost smartphone production.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the City of Roseville Employees’ Retirement System against Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, former CFO Rick Simonson and Nokia’s head of phones Kai Oisamo, alleges that Nokia misled investors between January and September 2008.

It says that, in that period, Nokia gave misleading statements about new product launches and manufacturing problems, about losing market share and about cutting its own prices for products. All of this resulted in the Nokia’s American Depository Shares falling by eight percent, writes BBC News...

Nokia has been quick to put out its own response to the suit, which was filed on February 5: “Nokia has reviewed the allegations contained in the complaint and believes that they are without merit. Nokia intends to defend itself against the complaint vigorously.”

The City of Roseville’s retirement fund is not new to lawsuits against the companies in which it invests. Other suits have included cases against Textron (an aircraft, industrial and services conglomerate) and nuclear energy company EnergySolutions.

Separately, Nokia also announced that it would be laying off 285 employees in Finland as it redevelops one of its smartphone plants, in Salo, to improve production. The plant currently employes 2,200 people.

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• Apple Matches Nokia's Latest Attack By Filing A New Patent Complaint Of Its Own

—Tapulous rolls out Riddim Ribbon game: Tapulous, the maker of the popular music-based iPhone games, like Tap Tap Revenge, has launched its latest creation—Riddim Ribbon. The game, which is now available in the iTunes app store, lets users create their own unique mixes to hot tracks while they race down down a track. The track is really “a crazy ribbon,” in which users must pick up pebbles, and choose various forks in the road, land jumps and avoid obstacles.The co-producer of the game is The Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. Songs in the game include The Black Eyed Peas hits: Boom Boom Pow, I Gotta Feeling, and Meet Me Halfway. The app costs $3, and each additional level is 99 cents.

—Loopt goes hyper-local for ads: Location-based mobile social networking service, Loopt, has started to integrate local advertising into its mobile service that allow users to receive offers, coupons and discounts at a neighborhood level. The service is being powered by a company called Mobile Spinach, and will be limited to San Francisco at first with Los Angeles and New York coming in months. An example is an ad for Blowfish Sushi, a San Francisco Sushi restaurant, which is offering one of their signature rolls for free. No word on whether the ads will conflict with a new Apple policy, which states that if an ad is served based on a user’s location it must serve a “beneficial” purpose.

—Social media iPhone app for skiers: Digital agency Phonevalley has created a social media app for the iPhone that it claims is the first dedicated to the European skiing community. Ski Challenge - Prove it, features 3D maps and guides for 45 European resorts. It lets users record and share tricks, publish geo-localized photos and videos on those 3D maps (or send them to Facebook), and send messages to other skiers. Users can also record their runs and chart them with other stats like alitude, distance and speed. The free app, which is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, is sponsored by Nissan.

Someone at Macmillan has a sense of humor. When I landed on the site Saturday night to check on e-book pricing and availability following Amazon’s one-week banishment, the book being promoted at the top of the front page was Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone about pricing as a “collective hallucination.” More than fitting as Macmillan and other publishers challenge Amazon’s mission to sell most e-books for $9.99.

Among the current collective hallucinations about e-book pricing: Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) stands alone in trying to keep prices lower and publishers can’t set rates. Publishers haven’t been able to set Amazon’s rates but Macmillan is selling books online for the price it prefers—while linking to other sites with lower or sometimes similar pricing. Case in point: best-seller Sarah’s Key disappeared last Friday during a power play between Amazon and Macmillan. (See our chart Pricing E-Books: A Snapshot.) Macmillan said it was switching to an “agency” or commission model where it sets the rate and e-tailers get a commission (usually 30 percent) and by the beginning of March would be pricing new books and bestsellers higher. Amazon retaliated by removing all Macmillan from its print and Kindle stores, but within days went public with its plans to follow the new pricing scheme. Late last week the print versions started to return; paidContent can confirm the Kindle downloads are back, too.

At what price? For now, Sarah’s Key is $9.99 for Kindle and for BN.com (NYSE: BKS), which describes it as 28 percent below list price. The e-book is selling for list price of $13.95 at Macmillan.com, where it can be purchased in Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) PDF and eReader formats, and Mobipocket. The $13.95 matches the list price of the trade paperback—which runs $7.96 on Amazon and $10.04 at Borders. Macmillan is charging more than the going rate of a print edition for an online edition. Amazon is too but it also discounts the $25 hardback to $17, which is considerably more than the Kindle edition.

When Macmillan implements its new scheme in March, some e-books could wind up with lower prices but new releases are likely to be $12.95 and $14.95. In an ideal world, prices would ratchet back after the book has been out for a while and e-book prices would take the lower costs of digital distribution into account but it could be months before we get any real gauge. One possible wrench: Apple’s desire to wear the white hat for publishers and its willingness to go in a different direction with e-book prices than it did with music by encouraging a new release price around $15 and promising not to discount a la Amazon and B&N. If Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) promotes a sliding scale, that could make a difference.

Meanwhile, Amazon is pre-selling Game Change—a hot political book that HarperCollins has kept from e-book editions since it published Jan. 11 in the hopes of selling more hardbacks—on Kindle for $8.91; when the book is finally available Feb. 22, the price goes up to $9.99. The hardback is $13 on Amazon, list $27.99. The book mentioned at the top of this story came out in January and there’s no sign of its arrival as an e-book so no way for me to impulse buy. Hachette, which is joining Macmillan in the switch, told literary agents that it would promise same-date release as part of the change, according to GalleyCat.

About those higher prices: If all publishers switching to the agency model follow suit—and add scaling as print books shift in price or release dates fade in the distance—it will go a long way to appeasing readers currently supporting the nascent e-book sector. If they add e-book-only extras, as Apple and others have encouraged with music and albums, that will help support the higher price. Ditto, if they come up with a combo print/e-book version or guarantee access to text-to-audio features on the Kindle and other devices. Over the two years that I’ve been buying e-books, I’ve noticed that when an e-book costs more than $10—and in some cases, more than $7 or so, that either makes it a library book for me or a book that I’ll consider buying in print if I know others who will read it. Publishers who leave readers and book buyers out of the equation when they set these price plans may still win the round—but they’ll lose the game.

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• Hachette Joins Macmillan In Rejecting $9.99 Baseline E-Book Pricing
• Amazon To Customers: 'We Will Have To Capitulate To Macmillan'
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• Amazon Unveils New Kindle Royalty Option; Incentive To Keep E-Book Prices Down
• @ eBook Summit: Sony's Haber: You Can't Make Money Selling E-Books For $9.99; DRM Is A Good Thing