A few hours after Steve Case tweeted that Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) CEO Don Graham told a hometown crowd Tuesday the paper wouldn’t charge for online news, the company told paidContent it was launching its first paid iPhone app today. With that, the Washington Post joins a small but…

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…

That’s according to updated estimates from Doug Anmuth, analyst at Barclays Capital, in light of Amazon’s Q4 results and recent accounting change. Anmuth says he estimates 3.1 million Kindles will be sold this year (62 percent growth Y/Y) and Kindle-related revenue will be $1.6 billion, or 5 percent of AMZN’s…

Five major publishers were highlighted by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) at Wednesday’s unveiling of the iPad and the iBookstore. Two days later, one of them was starring in a different e-reader drama when reports emerged that Macmillan titles were no longer being sold directly by Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN). Macmillan wants to…

When we did the first version of this chart heading into the 2009 holiday sales season, four contenders—including the unexpected Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) Nook—were set to crowd the instant-download e-reader field that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) had to itself for the last two years. Within weeks it already had…

For some critics, the lack of participation from content companies at yesterday’s iPad launch threw some cold water on predictions for how the new device could help the media business regain revenues lost to the web. But if you looked hard enough, publishers were there and, more importantly, some have…

Only if you were flying transatlantic the whole day, could you have missed the brilliant lights of reality distortion field hovering over the privileged earth yesterday. Oh wait, I was. Someone who tried to avoid it while being on terra firma—an admirable task—was Douglas Anmuth, analyst at Barclays Capital. In…

Arnon Mishkin is a partner with Mitchell Madison Group, where he consults for media companies on improving legacy businesses as well as making the internet profitable. Prior to MMG, he was a partner at the Boston Consulting Group, where he did some of the firm’s earliest work on the web.…

One of the biggest knocks toward Amazon’s Kindle has been the closed nature of the Internet-capable device. That starts to dissipate today with word from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) that “later this year” the Kindle Store will start featuring “active content” produced by developers who can suggest their own prices and…

When Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) launched its larger Kindle, the DX, in Europe two weeks ago, the promotion around the product was noticeable for being pretty US-centric. Even on sites in countries like France, if you wanted to buy the device, you were redirected to Amazon.com, where you were given product…

Better late than never? Amazon today has started to sell the Kindle DX, the larger of its e-readers, outside the U.S. The launch comes three months after the smaller device went on sale internationally, and nearly two years after the first of the devices hit the U.S. market. Like the…

The Nook can’t be bought to go in stores or ordered for December delivery any more but at least Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) is fulfilling orders. Sony (NYSE: SNE) promises the wireless Daily Edition will be shipping for Christmas. PlasticLogic never promised Que for the 2009 holiday season. But…

I finally had the chance to try out the Nook this weekend, not the in-depth look needed for a full review but 30 minutes or so hands on as a customer trying it out in a Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) store. My experience wasn’t linear; I stopped to let…

This has been a breakout year for e-readers and e-books—device sales will have more than tripled by the end of this year, and content sales are up 176% for the year. But next year will be anything but boring. Here are Forrester’s predictions for 2010: 1. E Ink will lose…

When Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) introduced the second-gen Kindle earlier this year, it had no competition in the wireless e-reader category. By the holidays, it will be competing head on for consumers with the Daily Edition from Sony (NYSE: SNE), the unfortunately named DR8000SG from IREX Technologies, and a surprise entrant,…

That $20 price drop for the international Kindle goes a little deeper than the obvious competitive move; it was the company’s way of signaling that Kindle 2 and global Kindle are the same device. The conceit that there were two was a distinction without a difference save in one key…

Updated: My local Barnes & Noble store says “The Nook”—the new e-reader being unveiled in New York today—won’t hit stores until November. So far, no display either. For now, that leaves B&N pitching its retail-centric device the same way as rival Amazon: online. The pitch includes a side-be-side chart comparing…

To hear Kevin Hamilton, the North American CEO for IREX Technologies, his company is talking to just about everybody about every possible scenario for the new iRex Digital Reader 800SG. Still, I was surprised during an interview from Germany (where he was attending the Frankfurt Book Fair) when he told…

The international Kindle is starting to look like a virtual ATM for Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). Not only will U.S. Whispernet users have to pay $5 a week for accessing their subscriptions, as we reported yesterday, and $2 per book download, downloads of single issues run $2. The fee for the…