Comments on: Newspaper publishers are Apple’s new music labels for the tablet

By: Neal Pann

Neal Pann — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:26:35 +0000

Damn right it is! Well said Jim.

By: stefn

stefn — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:15:03 +0000

I think it will go way past textbook publishing. Higher ed is ripe for the picking. Its pricing structure, certainly for a BA, is ridiculous. Makes the music industry look abstemious. Nor does it seem to have noticed the presence of godzilla sized library called the web. Absolutely Apple’s cup of tea. And wouldn’t Jobs love to stick it to academia? How soon before we see an accredited $5,000 to $10,000US degree? Unless your kid is Ivy League bound, it’s all about moving on to a masters degree and, ideally, two or three specific to a job-related knowledge and skill base. For the $100K a BA costs today, kids could rack up several degrees and get on with life without mortgaging their careers to pay the toll.

By: pixlart

pixlart — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:53:51 +0000

As someone with a daughter at college, I hope that the textbook publishers grab onto this. Textbook prices are outrageous and the books often become obsolete in a short amount of time. With epublishing, these publishers could update their textbooks far less expensively than the current paper-based product, not to mention they could even amend it during the semester.

By: stefn

stefn — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:48:54 +0000

Good. Apple as the ultimate content publisher. Or is it distributor? Or marketer? Answer: All of the above.

With its quicktime and itunes technology, Apple can market and distribute titles from music, video, app, and print publishers.

With its developing genius technology, Apple becomes itself a publisher—defined as involving the responsibility to vet content, not just market and distribute it.

Here’s how it looks: Regardless of the size and shape of displays, in the future is about app publishing. Apps involve music, video, audio, print, and programs in all sorts of combinations. Outside the physical, atomic world, which will be Amazon’s selling territory, digital, electronic publishing will become app publishing.

Apple and Google can figure out who does what apps. Just to say: Apple’s App Store is already up and running with a legion of developers, a host of buyers, and a successful (not perfect) approach for marketing, distributing, purchasing and profiting off apps.

By: Darby Lines

Darby Lines — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:47:45 +0000

I suspect that you’re right about this. I don’t have any empirical evidence, but my intuition is telling me that 2010 is going to be the year that ereading in general takes off. The B&N Nook is (to me at least) 90% of the way to being my ideal ereader, If Apple’s history regarding digital music players and smartphones is any indication I think that they have a real chance to snipe this market too.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:47:09 +0000

I can hear Jobs saying to Bezos, you want to sell books cheap, or do you want to change the world?

I wonder if this is why Amazon chose to buy Audibe.com. It gives them leverage with Apple because that’s the main source of their audio books.

I go to Audible.com directly because it costs way less to get my books that way. If Apple changes the game, I hope that it doesn’t mess with my Audible subscription.

By: Jim Dalrymple

Jim Dalrymple — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:10:50 +0000

Not to mention the convenience of being able to read it on transit or sitting in the park while taking a break from work. There are a lot of advantages that people from all walks of life could enjoy.

By: Matt McCormick

Matt McCormick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:06:06 +0000

As someone who has been experimenting getting the paper delivered for the past 2 weeks, I hope you are right about this. In just two weeks I’ve got a stack 3 feet high of newspapers that need to be recycled. I hate that and being able to read it on a tablet every day…well, I’d definitely pay for that (I’m getting the paper as a free trial and that’s the only reason I was willing to “pay” for that).