Newspapers, magazines, press syndicates, not just e-book and POD publishers, should beware of Amazon's lock-ins

Steve Tippie, editor-publisher of “Opinionated,” the new e-magazine that Tribune Media Services is distributing via Amazon, reminds us that Opinionated’s individual articles are not Kindle-exclusive. But the magazine itself is at this point—a description that Wiley‘s Joe Wilkert properly used, having read the word “exclusive” in a TMS news release.

Yes, I’m happy that Opinionated received “no special deals from Amazon,” according to Steve, “just standard ones with some nonfinancial tweaks.”  Even so, a true test will be whether the same content in aggregated form is available on other platforms—one reason why I hope his company will join the IDPF and endorse the .epub standard. What’s more, he’ll ideally press for it to be developed to be point where it will be as useful for newspapers and periodicals as for books.

Looking beyond Amazon

Steve, it’s great to see you experimenting with collections of articles from “Arianna Huffington, Henry Kissinger, Garrison Keillor and others,” and that Opinionated has made the Kindle bestseller list. I’d encourage you to continue your efforts at Amazon. For all I know, the TeleBlog someday may be distributed that way. But the world need effortless distribution through a number of channels—along with, I might add, common platforms for reading books and periodicals alike. That is what .epub could help accomplish. Periodicals could not only include core content but also blogs and forums that writers and readers regularly updated, and the same content could also appear on the open Web, either for free or with support from subscription fees, advertising or both.

The L word

But can we trust Amazon to let this vision unfold? I would heartily recommend that Steve read Amazon’s publisher lock-ins: Four ways listed by O’Reilly publishing tech expert.  The four mentioned by Andrew Savikas are:

1. “Data-driven lock-in.” He mentions reader reviews of books, but the same concept would apply to comment on the news.

2. “Format lock-in.” Amazon so far refuses to let the Kindle read books and other content in the IDPF standard.

3. “Pricing power lock-in.” Should Amazon have the clout to standardize magazine prices against the wishes of publishers? However much Jeff Bezos might deny such intentions, I wouldn’t trust him, based on the Toys R Us lawsuit and other past history. Avoidance of lock-ins would reduce fears of Amazon power grabs.

4. “Channel lock-in.” Perhaps Steve should check out the POD controversy with Ingram/Lightning Source.

If nothing else, I would caution Steve and other media people against applying a double standard and exempting Amazon from concerns of the kind voiced about the power of Google News’ aggregation (my standard disclaimer: I own a tiny slice of Google for retirement investment purposes).

Once again, Steve, thanks for dropping by, and I hope you’ll continue the dialogue.

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