Amazon loudly Audible (and freudian finger puppets)

Listen my children and you shall hear / Of Audible's acquistion by Amazon dear / In this, your Friday IT Blogwatch. Not to mention your premise is shaky ...

Om Malik hears something he likes:

Amazon is buying Audible for $300 million in cash. It’s a smart move by the Seattle-based e-tailer that is spending nearly 20 percent of its fourth-quarter end net cash. Why do I like this deal? So far, Amazon has made a living out of distributing physical goods, and leveraging its physical and technology infrastructure to compete with brick-and-mortar rivals.
...
Amazon now wants to become a major distributor of digital goods. [read more]

Jon C. Ogg hears a need fulfilled:

If any company needed to be acquired in the digital media for books, magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, and other content distribution, it was Audible. The company has its Audible.com service in the U.S. that has been around since the late-1990's for subscriptions, and the service also offers sites specifically for the U.K., France, and Germany. [read more]

Don't be crazy. Listen to Rex:

If you’re an audiobook listener, you probably already know that Audible serves as the back-end for audiobook downloads for Apple’s iTunes Store. However, as I’ve said on this blog before, it’s crazy to purchase audiobooks via the iTunes Store rather than directly from Audible.com as the direct purchase allows re-downloads of any books you buy — and the iTunes Store doesn’t. [read more]

Doug Aamoth hears of a jack:

The purchase will allow Amazon to offer up Audbile’s 80,000+ audio programs (mostly books, newspapers, and certain radio programs) for download to its digital content customers. Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has an audio jack that would likely be put to good use with such an acquisition. [read more]

Mike hears a regret:

Darn it. I wish Apple had done this.
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Only Apple is in a position to reverse the civilization-killing decline of literary interest among young people -- the "Twilight of the Books," as The New Yorker called it. [read more]

Personanondata hears a war:

It is all out war with Apple. (In fact, I would not be surprised to see a competing offer for Audible. I know Apple are not in the content owning business but they might do it to be mischievous or to protect a budding position in the book market). There has been some speculation about whether Apple would develop an e-reader device as part of the I-Phone. Despite his comments to the contary, I believe Jobs was planning some development here and I speculate that Amazon thought so as well. Amazon will do everything they can to keep Apple out of the content distribution/platform business. [read more]

Stacey hears of hope:

Amazon PR got back to me to say that Audible will continue to sell content via Apple and hopes to grow the relationship. [read more]

Sid hears of help :

To Amazon, this will mean a huge bump in assets and presence in digital media. With the help of Amazon, Audible should now be able to offer even lower prices and bring their inventory to a broader audience. In terms of revenues, Amazon adds about $80 million of annual revenue to its income statement through Audible. And now with the help of each other, this number is likely to grow — there are a number of opportunities for both companies to leverage given their position. [read more]

Stan Schroeder hears the spin:

Let’s hear that in marketingese:

“Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry,” said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s senior vice president for worldwide digital media. “Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience.”

[read more]

And finally... is YouTube your life?... [Thanks Angela]

Buffer overflow:

• Paul Krill: Renault in Linux deal with Microsoft, Novell
• Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Why companies don't support Debian
• Alan Shimel: Further reflections on Trend, Barracuda and open source
• InsideMicrosoft: Could Live Search Actually Take Second Place?
• Dan Sullivan: FBI Busts Identity Theft Botnet
• PC Mechanic: How To Stop People From Freeloading Your Broadband
• Mike Masnick: HD DVD Bets Big On Super Bowl Ad... Yeah, That'll Do It

Other Computerworld bloggers

• Lucas Mearian: My big-fat, six-hour Verizon FiOS installation
• Eric Lai: Windows XP drivers for Everex CloudBook
• Mitch Betts: What IT investments and gambling have in common
• Preston Gralla: Microsoft holds death of the "Kill Switch" hostage to Vista SP1
• Mark Hall: Virtual testing for IT ops
• Shark Tank: 1% genius, 99% patience
• Mike Elgan: Amazon buys Audible (Too bad it wasn't Apple)
• Doug Schweitzer: Is help for the FDA on its way?
• Seth Weintraub: iPhone numbers are right and wrong
• Shark Bait: Speaking of Passwords...

Computerworld editor Joyce Carpenter compiled IT Blogwatch today. IT Blogwatch will not be published on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Regular Blogwatcher Richi Jennings will be back for Wednesday's edition. Have a great weekend.

Previously in IT Blogwatch

• Google phone or Dell phone (and microwaved Twinkies)
• Trend Micro bites Barracuda (and wakka wakka)
• Cisco Switch (and Mw: 3 months)