Amazon is in talks with major magazine publishers, such as Conde Nast, to give customers single issues and subscriptions through the upcoming Amazon Tablet.
The company is betting on unique content to drive sales for its first Android tablet due out next month. When Apple initially launched its iPad, it also toted magazine subscriptions as a critical factor in driving sales. Unfortunately it did not roll out until a full year after the release of the iPad 1. Amazon is hoping to launch this full service as part of its massive ecosystem for books, magazines, and newspapers.
eWeek has predicted that Amazon will adhere to its core philosophy of undercutting the competition for magazine subscriptions. They more then likely will offer better terms and pricing for magazines that do business with the online retailer.
Many companies that offer tablets to its customers do not personally deliver content and instead rely on 3rd parties for magazines. Samsung is famous for its Readers Hub in its Galaxy Tab series and includes Zinio as the sole means to take out magazine subscriptions. This might be fine for the end customer but Samsung does not really make very much from sales. If Amazon were to include magazine subscriptions as part of its ecosystem it would be delivering the content personally and make more money per sale of each issue or subscription plan.
Personally I think it is a good idea for Amazon to offer magazine subscriptions and not rely on 3rd parties to deliver the content. The one drawback of the Samsung line of tablets is the sheer amount of companies you have to do business with to get literary content. If you look at the Readers Hub you have to open an account with Kobo to get books and then another account with Zinio to get magazines and so on. With Amazon all you need is your one Amazon account and you can get your books and magazines and not have to keep entering your personal information with all of these different companies. I like it when things are made easy and one ecosystem provides all of the content that I would need on a daily basis. This is why Apple is so successful. All you need is a single iTunes account and you can buy anything and it keeps it simple.
Amazon made waves a few days ago when it was talking with book publishers to develop a Netflix based ebook subscription plan into its tablet. This would allow customers to pay an annual fee to get access to a ton of ebooks. Sources at some publishing companies were resistant to the idea that it would undervalue their content being sold on other platforms. It is hard to dispute the success of Netflix in streaming television shows and movies.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
