With an opaque TOC Frankfurt appearance and vague press release, founder of struggling social-reader-and-more company ReThink Books Jason Illian announced his expanded BookShout! site from Frankfurt. Yes, it still has social reading (even though iniatives for broad social reading outside the major platforms have had almost no consumer uptake); yes, he wants to be an ebookseller (with only about 100,000 titles or now, and of course no device line); plus BookShout! also aims to be a third-party universal book locker where consumers can access ebooks they bought from multiple sellers (readable via iOs and Android apps, which means usable on […]
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Kobo Acquires French Digital Service Company Aquafadas; Expands Self-Publishing and Adds New Zealand Partners
Kobo has a definitive agreement under which they intend to acquire Franch-based digital services and rich media provider Aquafadas, which develops software for digital publishing to tablets and smartphones, and user-friendly software for Flash, HTML5, photo and video editing. Their AveComics is used by French publishers and other to publish comics to tablets and smartphones. Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis says, “Digital Reading is rapidly evolving now to new rich media categories. This transaction will strengthen both Kobo’s and Aquafadas position in our current markets and allow us to accelerate the growth of rich media with the Aquafadas Digital Publishing system.” […]
Txtr Targets Cellphone Companies with Simple, Lightweight Reader Projected to Sell for Less Than 10 Euros
At the Frankfurt Book Fair, German-based txtr (part owned by 3M) announced an ebook strategy that aims to both shake up and expand the market for eInk readers and ebook sales internationally. While telecoms and cable companies worldwide have been looking at ways of entering the ereader market, txtr has a proposition to make that happen now. “We want to unlock new groups of customers” and “liberate reading,” the company said. They are launching a nearly-free ereader–projected to sell for less than 10 euros–that is also the “world’s smallest” at five inches and what they say is the lightest reader as […]
Pottermore Will Work With Other Brands As A Platform
Pottermore ceo Charlie Redmayne closed out the Publishers Launch Conference with a bang, indicating that “Pottermore is a digital publishing business” and part his roadmap for the next 12 months is to “work with other brands” from publishing and elsewhere. “We’ve started working brands, and indeed with publishers, trying to identify digital strategies that fulfill the sort of things” they have done for JK Rowling’s work. They are “already working with one other brand” in particular in a serious way (though Redmayne later told the Bookseller this first brand partner is a “non-book” property). “You can do a lot of […]
At Publishers Launch, Making a Customer Focus Work
We’ve had a rich and interesting day in Frankfurt so far at the Publishers Launch conference, which kicks off the pre-fair forums. A bookseller-focused post is listed separately, and we’ll have more reporting tomorrow, with additional reports coming in from paidContent and The Bookseller. The event starting with a look at the larger competitive landscape of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook to set context from UK analyst Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis. He reminded the audience that “Amazon is a mechanism for capturing the conversion of commerce to ecommerce. As each sector becomes susceptible to ecommerce it captures” that sector […]
BN Eyes “Digital Moms” and Content Channels for International Rollout; More Kobo Partnerships Imminent
At the Publishers Launch Frankfurt conference on Monday, new Barnes & Noble international executive Patrick Rouvillois emphasized that in their imminent UK launch that they will be focusing on “digital moms” and families, as they have in the US. He was joined by BN executives Theresa Horner and Jim Hilt, who emphasized that the new Microsoft strategic partnership will allow Nook to sell content to customers in many territories and languages around the world through the Windows 8 platform well before they formally launch local stores in other territories. “It removes hurdles to us setting up storefronts,” Horner said. “The Windows […]