The Publishing Revolution: Google, Apple Now Leading the Charge
The publishing industry spurred a lot of news this week, with updates and developments affecting its every major aspect. Google and Apple seem to have taken charge of the digital prospect of publishing, rolling out a few updates of their own this week. But let’s take a brief step back and consider some other players in the evolving publishing industry–there are casualties of Google and Apple’s front.
The first comes from Barnes & Noble, who’s trying to move publishers away from Amazon onto its own platform, now consisting of 13,000 affiliates. This attempt comes in the form of an open letter focusing on Amazon’s updating rulings around sales taxes, which resulted in the termination of its affiliate program in some states.
“Barnes & Noble is disappointed to hear that Amazon would threaten small businesses’ livelihood rather than comply with state law. Here at Barnes & Noble, we value the 13,000-plus members of our affiliate program worldwide. They are an important part of our overall business success and strategy. Barnes & Noble collects and remits sales tax due from its sales, including from BN.com, our e-commerce business.”
Barnes & Noble is concentrating efforts to expand its turf, but rival bookstore chain Borders has something else to worry about. MarketWatch reports Borders filed for Chapter 11 protection, an indicator of just how big digital media has become. Apple understands this very well, and is looking to maximize its cut of digital magazine subscriptions. The company announced a new subscription plan for magazines and newspapers designed to maximize its App Store revenues, and naturally, Google is retaliating in its own special way.
It may just be bad (or good?) timing, but shortly after Apple’s announcement the Wall Street Journal reports that Google has launched a new payment system for publishers. Called Google One Pass, the big attraction is that Google takes only 10% of revenues compared to Apple with 30 percent. This means Conde Nast’s preparation of Wired and The New Yorker for the upcoming Honeycomb 3.0 is probably a good move, considering that there is one more aspect to Google One Pass.
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