A quick post about a couple of potentially related (sort of) happenings in digital publishing today.
First, as has been reported, Random House, the largest of the big book publishers, has announced that it will move to the agency model for selling ebooks starting tomorrow, March 1, 2011. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/28/random-house Could this mean an announcement of Random House books coming to the agency model driven iBooks be happening soon (oh, say, on March 2nd)?
And then the iTunes App Store pops up an update to Barnes & Noble’s nook for iPhone app. And what’s in the “What’s New” listings but “Sign up in application” among other minor tweaks. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barnes-noble-nook-for-iphone/id384910586?mt=8 . Could this be how B&N is handling the new in-app publishing/subscription rules? Some sort of in-app sign-up to access nook content?
Things are definitely rumbling these days. Interesting times.
srhawk.com 