Laura covers book publishing, paywalls and magazines for GigaOM, and has a particular interest in e-book pricing and e-singles. She was previously the editor of Publishing Trends, a website and newsletter for the book publishing industry, and served as a staff writer for paidContent. Laura writes from the GigaOM East office in Manhattan.
Amazon has maneuvered to avoid collecting state sales taxes, but that’s only part of the story: This week’s Fortune cover article reveals that even when things don’t go the retailer’s way, it’s been able to turn them to its advantage. Read more at GigaOM »
When Open Road Media launched in 2009, the idea of an all-digital publisher was still fairly new. Nearly four years later, it’s encountering more competition as publishers of all sizes hone their digital strategies. Here’s what it’s doing to try to stay ahead. Read more »
Amazon is making its Kindle Fire HD tablets broadly available internationally, with preorders shipping in June. The tablets were already available in Europe and Japan. Read more »
Personalized social reader Zite is updating its iOS app with more Google Reader-inspired features, and also added seven new publishers to its publisher program. Read more »
Penguin has agreed to pay $75 million to settle the ebook pricing lawsuit with consumers and states. Meanwhile, Apple and the Department of Justice are set to go to trial on June 3. Read more »
Amazon Publishing is launching Kindle Worlds, a publishing platform that lets authors sell fan fiction based on properties like Gossip Girl. Amazon Publishing retains the rights to the works and will set the prices. Read more »
The six finalists of the Publishing Hackathon held over the weekend in New York focus on discovering books in new ways — whether it’s by browsing book jackets or getting recommendations based on your web browser history. Read more »
More news from Yahoo on Monday: The company is revamping photo-sharing service Flickr and is also opening a New York City office. Tumblr’s employees, however, will remain at their current office. Read more at GigaOM »
In an investor call Monday morning, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said Yahoo and Tumblr’s audiences really don’t overlap. She said that’s fine: Yahoo users will be exposed to more Tumblr content, and Tumblr gets a new ad strategy and possible Flickr integration while remaining a separate site. Read more at GigaOM »
Yahoo has officially acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion, the companies announced Monday morning. Tumblr will be operated as a separate business, with David Karp remaining CEO. Read more at GigaOM »
Yahoo’s board has agreed to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr, according to reports. Read more at GigaOM »
When soap operas “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” moved online, it wasn’t clear how fans would watch them. It turns out that most viewers are binge-watching — so the soaps’ production company is cutting back on the number of new episodes each week. Read more »
Book publishers discussed digital-first and digital-only initiatives at the Making Information Pay conference this week. Read more »
Journalists and organizations now have the ability to use sensors to collect their own real-time data and report on it. The practice raises both practical and ethical questions, Columbia’s Emily Bell said Thursday. Read more »
Neal Edelstein, producer of hit movies like The Ring and Mulholland Drive, has a new film project: A film delivered in chunks directly through an iOS app. Read more »
The New Yorker has launched Strongbox, an open-source software system that allows users to submit confidential documents to the magazine anonymously. Strongbox was built by Aaron Swartz before his death. Read more »
Tech Cocktail, a company that covers startup-related news and organizes events, has received $2.5 million from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project, which aims to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. Read more »
The U.S. consumer book publishing industry had a strong 2012, fueled in part by the growth of ebooks. Read more »
In an interesting public-private partnership, children’s reading app Ruckus is teaming up with Connecticut Public Television to offer a CPTV-branded kids’ iOS app. Read more »
Aereo announced Tuesday that it will launch in Atlanta in June. It’s already available in the New York City area, and will launch in Boston on Wednesday. The company also simplified its pricing plans, eliminating daily and yearly options. Read more »
Amazon has acquired Samsung’s color screen display technology, Liquavista. The technology could be used to create low-power color screens for Kindles. Read more »
Amazon’s virtual currency, Amazon Coins, launched Monday. It can be used to buy apps and games and make in-app purchases on the Kindle Fire and in Amazon’s app store. Read more »
Amazon Publishing is launching a weekly romance podcast, “Kindle Love Stories.” The podcast will include a discussion group at Goodreads, the reading-focused social network that Amazon recently acquired. Read more »
PBS’s MediaShift is launching a line of ebooks, starting with titles on self-publishing and cord-cutting. Executive Mark Glaser says he plans to release 10 to 20 books this year, depending on how well the first titles do. Read more »
Ping.it aims to help users discover targeted content across the web — for example, YouTube videos that appeared on Reddit and got the largest number of Facebook likes. The service, in public beta, is still clunky, but worth checking out. Read more »
Politico announced Thursday that it will test a metered paywall this week in six states, as well as abroad. But readers in the Washington, D.C. area remain exempt because Politico gets so much advertising revenue from them. Read more »
Self-publishing platform and distributor Smashwords analyzed ebook sales for nearly a year. CEO Mark Coker draws some interesting conclusions on the best way to price a self-published ebook. Read more »
Microsoft already has a stake in Nook Media, and now it is reportedly seeking to buy out the entire company. In Nook, Microsoft sees a shot at competing against Amazon and Apple — in a way it might not be able to do from scratch. Read more »
News Corp COO Chase Carey spoke about Fox’s digital strategy in an earnings call Wednesday afternoon. The company saw strong growth in home video, thanks to digital downloads. Carey also acknowledged that Hulu will have to adapt in coming years to compete with Netflix. Read more »
Popular politics blog The Dish, which went independent and added a metered paywall at the beginning of this year, is probably not going to reach its $900,000 goal, founder Andrew Sullivan says. Read more »
The Kobo Aura HD has a great screen, but its deficiencies should make consumers look twice at the $169.99 price tag. Read more at GigaOM »
Evan Williams sees Medium, the blogging platform that he and Biz Stone launched last year, as a modern-day magazine. While Medium will eventually open to everyone, Williams said he wants the site to be “a great place for professional writers.” Read more »
The Huffington Post rolled out its first Asian edition in Japan on Tuesday. Read more »
Digital library distributor Baker & Taylor launched an app Monday that will let library patrons read ebooks on iOS and Android devices. Read more »
The New York Times is launching a series of short, web-only documentaries with nonprofit Retro Report. The weekly 10- to 15-minute documentaries will run on the NYT’s baby boomer blog and will examine events of the past. Read more »
Sourcebooks and Overdrive believe that library lending leads to increased book sales and author recognition. In a two-week trial, they will promote a Sourcebooks ebook on library homepages and see how the promotion affects paid sales and author recognition. Read more »
Spotify has acquired the music app Tunigo, which helps users discover Spotify playlists and browse music and music-related news. Read more at GigaOM »
Barnes & Noble is integrating many Google services — including Google Play, Gmail, Google Maps and the Chrome browser — into its Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets. Read more at GigaOM »
E-singles startup Byliner has a new president: Deanna Brown, who was previously the CEO of Federated Media and before that held executive roles at Scripps, Yahoo and AOL. She also founded Inside.com and Gaming Industry News and cofounded CondéNet. Read more »
The Atlantic is launching an ebooks division that will publish e-singles and curated collections of content from the magazine’s archives. The first e-single is only available through Amazon’s Kindle Singles store for now, though it will soon be available at other retailers. Read more »
