The first paragraph of a WSJ story is widely recirculated today: “Amazon.com plans to offer brick-and-mortar retailers a checkout system that uses Kindle tablets as soon as this summer, people briefed on the company’s plans said.” But many of the retransmissions overlook the story’s fourth paragraph: “Amazon’s plans remain fluid and the project might be delayed, altered or canceled, they said.” Modernized credit card checkout systems from the likes of Square and eBay are big and growing business, as are “mobile wallet” plays to turn cellphones into payment devices. It makes sense that Amazon wants to expand into payment processing, just […]
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Flat World Raises Another $9.5 Million; Blackboard to Sell Textbooks
Over a year ago open source textbook start-up Flat World gave up their free online textbooks — and the company relocated to Washington, DC and went through a quiet period (the company “newsroom” last posted in December 2012 when they hired Christopher Etesse as ceo, taking over from founder Jeff Shelstad). The company recently closed another funding round, receiving an additional $9.5 million from previous backers (led by Bessemer Venture Partners and once again including BDMI and Penguin Random House). Founded in 2007, the company has raised close to $36 million so far. Part of the funding — and their […]
Google Play for Education Expands In K-12 with Houghton Books and More Devices
Google is rolling out an expansion of their education initiative (Google Play for Education) in the K-12 market with a number of announcements and new partnerships, timed in conjunction with the Florida Education and Technology Conference (FETC). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will “provide access to a broad range” their K-12 education content to Google’s content store, and Google’s blog indicates the Education store will also offer “classic literature” from publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. The “affordable access model” makes that content available for 60-, 180-, or 360-day periods, and “provides educators with the flexibility to regularly access updated versions, change […]
iPads and Chromebooks In Schools; Scribd Hosts Kindle Fire App After Failing to Get It Listed By Amazon
In Apple’s investor conference call on Monday afternoon, cfo Peter Oppenheimer celebrated stats for iPad adoption and iBooks use in K-12 schools: “To-date, U.S. education institutions have purchased over 7 million iPads. In fact, we’ve sold over 750,000 iPads to K-12 schools in the State of Texas alone…. We have expended the availability of iBook textbook from four countries to over 50 countries, so that students and teachers around the world can experience the power of what a textbook can be. We continue to add new titles from key education publishers like Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. “In […]
A New Children’s Subscription
There is a new entrant in field offering ebook subscriptions for kids, Epic!, which targets kids 12 and under with an app that offers unlimited reading for $9.99 a month (starting with a one-month free trial). They stream the books rather than download them, and the company says participating publishers include Simon & Schuster, Open Road, Lerner, Kids Can Press and others providing “thousands” of titles. Sample screens show books including Olivia; Click, Clack, Moo; and Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs. The company says it has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Menlo Ventures, Webb Investment Network, Innovation Endeavors, Maven Ventures, Morado […]
Abrams Announces eBooks for Libraries
At the ALA meeting in Philadelphia, Abrams announced that their frontlist ebooks are now available for libraries to purchase and lend, through the established vendors. Each “sale” activates the ebook for a year of lending, on the one-copy/one-user model. Abrams says they are selling to libraries at their standard digital list price. They are also offering “a full catalog of backlist” titles, so the program includes the Diary of Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. Abrams ceo Michael Jacobs says in the announcement, “We’ve been eager to fulfill library requests for both our frontlist and backlist e-books and are thrilled […]