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By David Rothman

BordersDetails from Jim Milliott at Publishers Weekly: “Borders is expanding its relationship with Sony, adding the technology company’s e-book reader to over 200 more of its superstores, while also agreeing to develop a co-branded store to facilitate e-book sales.”

The TeleRead take: Well, the above will go a long way toward narrowing the content gap between Amazon and Sony!

If Sony includes Adobe Digital Editions and offers .epub format through it—and uses .epub in e-books online—that’ll be great news for the standard. Amazon will be under more pressure to offer .epub ASAP on its site..

In addition, Borders and Sonys want to encourage more middle-sized and small publishers to try e-books. But in .epub format, please, guys!

Now let’s just hope that if stores and publishers insist on DRM, the IDPF can reach interoperability agreements so that “protection” does not continue to prop up the Towere of eBabel.

Additional detail from PW: “Starting next month, Borders will team with Sony to launch a new e-bookstore. Currently, e-book titles for the Reader can only be downloaded through Sony’s Connect online store. …the co-branded site will have a separate URL from either the Borders or Sony sites when it launches, but the store will eventually become part of the retailer’s e-commerce site, Borders.com, when that goes live early next year. Borders.com is currently undergoing beta tests.”

 
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