Amazon signs up magazine publishers and Fox

Amazon must be very, very serious about their upcoming tablet announcement which is said to happen at tomorrow’s press conference, and here is yet another tell tale sign that would happen – the Internet giant has already arrived at points of agreement with a trio of large publishing houses in order to provide digital magazine content for their tablet – which we found out yesterday that it will be called the Amazon Kindle Fire. Apart from magazines and books, the Kindle Fire is also said to be able to support Fox movies and TV shows via its Amazon Prime streaming video service.

Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith have agreed with Amazon to digital versions of their magazines, at least that is what Peter Kafka of AllThingsD mentioned. At press time, the three mentioned publishers do have subscription distribution deals with Apple, so this bit of news might not make Apple executives too happy. Guess the publishers have nothing to lose, and after all, Amazon’s terms are said to be very close as well.

Eagle-eyed readers would realize that Time Inc. is missing, and even so, Time has proved to be rather resistant to the idea of a digital subscription model, currently selling only individual titles on Apple’s App Store. One would expect that the Amazon Prime service which costs $79 annually will be a major factor in Amazon’s push for their tablet to the masses.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Tablets
Tags: Amazon, Kindle, Kindle Fire, Tablet