The Nook is only part of Barnes & Noble’s digital strategy. Now that the e-reader is launched and its production problems appear to be resolved, B&N is heightening its focus on another major area: selling digital content through its own site and device, and through other devices like the upcoming…

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) held its advertising upfront yesterday and unlike the traditional TV upfront events that are getting under way, the focus here was the company’s range of cross-platform offerings, all of which are tied together with social media elements. The centerpiece of the presentation was a…

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…

Weeks after Macmillan CEO John Sargent told Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) the publisher was switching to the agency model for e-book sales—prompting the e-tailer to black out its e-books for several days, he is still trying to explain what the change means for publishers and consumers. After Amazon pulled Macmillan’s books…

As the race to be be ebook format of choice hots up, Penguin is making some bold, experimental bets. These first-look demos of forthcoming books from iPad’s iBook Store, presented by Penguin Books’ CEO John Makinson in London on Tuesday, give an idea how publishers might approach Apple’s tablet…

At our first paidContent2010 conference, Elinor Hirschhorn, Simon & Schuster’s EVP & chief digital officer, spoke about the potential for book-online video hybrids such as Vook. “Is there a return?” she asked. “The real question is about distribution. It needs a larger channel or distribution relationship for the browser experience…

Docstoc, the online document-sharing service aimed at small business users, is expanding the online store is it opened last summer to bring in individuals. The new service augments the partner marketplace, which is mainly intended for larger publishers in the small biz, legal and real estate markets, as well as…

Mixed-media book publisher Vook has raised $2.5 million in seed funding as the company looks to capitalize on the wider adoption of e-readers and other portable devices. The funding comes from individual investors Ron Conway and Huffington Post chairman Ken Lerer, along with Maples Investments, Baseline Ventures and Founder Collective.…

Social publishing site Scribd is hoping to capitalize on the hype over apps and e-readers with a slew of products aimed at portable devices in the coming weeks. The San Francisco company’s founder Trip Adler tells the WSJ   Scribd will unveil a “send to mobile” feature this month that…

Bob Iger wasn’t on stage for the iPad launch last month, but the Disney CEO just gave a demo spiel Steve Jobs, the company’s largest shareholder, would applaud about a “really compelling” device that could be a game changer. Volunteering and replying to analyst questions about how Disney plans to…

		EPS*	Rev. vs QQ408	Net Inc. vs QQ408
Disney	Release		Flat	Flat

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

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…

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…

Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group is joining fellow iPad launch publisher Macmillan in plans to demand higher prices for its e-books, the WSJ reports. Macmillan’s titles in all formats initially were pulled from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) after it said it would set its own prices—preferably in the $12.99-$14.99 range—instead of…

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…

Is Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) acquiring a touchscreen startup? The NYT reports that Amazon is picking up Touchco, a very small startup incubated at NYU Media Research Lab. No response from Amazon but acquiring a company that claims to have less expensive touchscreen tech—even though it never went commercial—and could fit…

Does Apple’s iBooks ambition mean a new DRM regime for existing e-book app makers? Less than a week after the new iBooks store was announced alongside the iPad, the Amazon-owned Stanza iPhone e-books app has released an upgrade, the version notes for which read: “Removed ability to share books via…

It was a surprising weekend for those of us who had naively imagined that after crossing the River iPad, we might actually get some Elysian rest. But, alas, the fates conspired against us and handed us the curious case of Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) vs. Macmillan. Or Macmillan vs. Amazon? For…

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…