Amazon's hotly anticipated Kindle e-reader got even more press on Wednesday, but not the good variety.

In an op-ed titled "The Kindle Swindle" that appeared in the New York Times Wednesday, the president of the Author's Guild, Roy Blount Jr., took Amazon to task for its text-to-speech function on the new Kindle that began shipping this week.

The new Kindle can read books aloud -- but unlike audio books, royalties are not paid to authors. Blount argues the technology Amazon uses to turn text into a human voice is quickly improving, and authors need to be "duly vigilant" about this new means of transmitting their work.

The Guild, which is studying the issue, has called the Kindle's speech function a "significant challenge to the publishing industry." It has recommended to its members that they bring up the issue of the Kindle when negotiating new book contracts.

Publishers certainly could contractually prohibit Amazon from adding audio functionality to its e-books without authorization, and Amazon could comply by adding a software tag that would prohibit its machine from creating an audio version of a book unless Amazon has acquired the appropriate rights. Until this issue is worked out, Amazon may be undermining your audio market as it exploits your e-books.

In his op-ed, Blount assured readers that the Guild will continue to provide free audio availability to the blind -- and pooh-poohed suggestions that parents should expect lawsuits from reading bedtime stories to their children.

For the record: no, the Authors Guild does not expect royalties from anybody doing noncommercial performances of "Goodnight Moon." If parents want to send their children off to bed with the voice of Kindle 2, however, it's another matter.

Reuters spoke to Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos at the launch of the Kindle 2.

He talked about device’s price, Amazon’s big picture for Kindle, international plans and cannabilization.

Reuters: Has Kindle been a big hit since its debut late in 2007?
Jeff Bezos: We had way more demand than we ever expected or even hoped for.
which meant that we were sold out during 2 holiday seasons. which is not a good idea - not the plan. we made more than we though we would need and we still sold out. so its a high quality problem in the sense that demand has been very very good.

Reuters: Popular yes, but aren’t digital book sales still a fraction of physical book sales?
Bezos: In 14 months, for the 230,000 titles that we have Kindle additions, Kindle unit sales already represent more than 10 percent of Amazon’s total sales in those 230,000 titles. We spent 14 years building our physical books business. And in just 14 months, this is already 10 percent. So we are all very surprised that it is being adopted so quickly.

Reuters: How many Kindle 1’s were sold?
Bezos: We are going to stick to our policy of not sharing that.

Reuters: What is the long term goal? Is Kindle going be strictly for text or some kind of wonder gadget that competes with iPods and other multimedia devices?
Bezos: We are really focused on making the best purpose-built reading device…for books, magazines and newspapers, blogs. It does have a web browser, so you can surf the web wirelessly. (It has) A basic browser — it doesn’t do flash, for example. So that’s not the focus of the device. That’s not the emphasis of the device. The real focus is reading. Its a device for reading.

Reuters: It does play MP3’s…
Bezos: But that’s not the focus of the device.

Reuters: Who helps you make it?
Bezos: We don’t share the underlying business economics of the device. We believe it can be a meaningful business for us, over time.

Reuters: An Amazon employee (at the event) said it was made in China.
Bezos: Yes. We design it. But we don’t have our own factory.

Reuetrs: Any International plans?
Bezos: If you look at Amazon’s business overall, half of it is outside of the United States. We have a lot of global customers. this a U.S. device. We are not ready announce anything today about a global device, but with that big international customer base, we obviously are thinking about it.

Reuters: Any fear of cannibalization?
Bezos: Our view on that is — We sell kindle and kindle books. and we sell physical books. We are going to try as hard as we can to have the best physical book store in the world. And we are going to continue to pour energy into that, And we are going to work as hard as we can to make sure the Kindle is the best it can be. We are going to let customers choose how much of which one they do. You can imagine a different scenario where we would have the kind of business where we say ‘we want to have x-percent to be electronic and x-percent to be physical.’ We don’t do any of that.

Reuters: Amazon sells everything from giant screen TVs to tiny memory cards. Are you interested in making other electronics hardware products?
Bezos: We are totally focused on reading . We have no plans or thought about making any other kids of devices. We are really focused on this.

Reuters: What about a partnership with Apple or another partner?
Bezos: I don’t want to talk about a particular company but we are excited about making kindle interoperable with mobile devices. We announced Whisper Sync today. you can reader on your kindle and read on your phone and we keep track of your place. People are going to read on a multitude of devices. Kindle is the largest E-book store in the world and we want to make sure that if people want to read those books on a multitude of device that we are open and excited about that.

Reuters: People say $359 is expensive, and demand would be greater at, say, $99.
Bezos: We can’t make this device less expensive. It has this sophisticated EV-DO wireless radio, has the most sophisticated electronic paper display, a very fast processor. (Also) in Q4, in the midst of the worst macro involvement in a long time, we way underestimated demand for Kindle 1 at $359. So even in the midge of the worst macro economic environment probably since the great depression, people were buying kindles. Its just not possible to make this device less expensive.
If we could make it cheaper we would. We can’t make it cheaper.

Reuters: Washington - Any quick thoughts on the economic debate on stimulus?
Bezos: From Amazon’s point of view, we will stay heads down, focused, doing the same thing we have been doing for 14 years, which is lowering the prices, increasing selection…speeding up delivery. We are not going to change the way we do business because of the macro environment.

(Photo: Reuters)

Resembling a larger, whiter, thinner, but not-as-sexy iPhone, the Kindle 2 got its high-profile launch on Monday by Amazon, the Seattle-based online retailer.
 
Analysts, media and gadget hounds filled New York's Morgan Library to hear Chief Executive Jeff Bezos touting the slimmer, faster new version of the e-reader that at $359 is still hardly a steal.
    
The press conference even featured an appearance from horror author Stephen King, whose novella "Ur" -- about a college instructor who orders a Kindle (no joke) to frightening consequences -- is only available on the Kindle.
    
But despite the advance hoopla -- read Reuters' preview of the Kindle launch here -- the blogosphere was surprisingly low-key about Monday's unveiling -- perhaps given leaked photos of the supposed device that could be seen on the Internet beginning last fall.
    
"Wow, even Amazon is jumping on the iPhone-killer bandwagon," said one blog, http://www.boygeniusreport.com, adding that the new Kindle is 25 percent thinner than the iPhone. Gizmodo, calling its new design a success, wrote: "It looks like Amazon got a few clues from Apple and Braun's design guidelines." The www.Techcrunch.com blog summed it up even more succinctly: "It's much less ugly."
    
Bloggers praised its thinness, more storage, better battery life, better display and faster page turning, but some still griped at its price tag and design, with one blogger saying the new Kindle is "still not pretty." 

"If I'm going to spend $370, why wouldn't I buy an iPod Touch or a Netbook and get way more functionality," asked one posting. Another referenced the ubiquitous debate in cyberspace over open devices: "Where is the universal open device that consumers really want? Limited consumers just so you can direct all sales through Amazon will not play out in the long run."
 
For an interesting read on how Amazon is currently cornering an underserved market niche, but how competition from tablet PCs could be an issue in the future, read here.    
    
Few bloggers commented on the new "read-to-me" feature, which allows users to hear their content read by either a female or male voice -- although one blog said it "should be fun." That may steal away some sales of books on tape, but Kindle said the feature was still experimental.
    
Amazon won't disclose how many advance orders for the Kindle 2 it expects -- nor how many of the first version it sold. And still a mystery is whether or not the Kindle is cannibalizing sales from the company, whose highest margin business is physical book sales, according to Bernstein Research's Jeffrey Lindsay.
 
Bezos said last month for every physical book an Amazon customer with a Kindle buys, he or she buys 1.6 to 1.7 Kindle books.

(Photo of Bezos/Reuters)

Amazon’s newest Kindle is out — We’ve got reporters on the scene, and we’ll be back with more details shortly. In the meantime, here’s a link to the device on Amazon.com and part of today’s press release:

Amazon.com, Inc. today introduced Amazon Kindle 2, the new reading device that offers Kindle`s revolutionary wireless delivery of content in a new slim design with longer battery life, faster page turns, over seven times more storage, sharper images, and a new read-to-me feature. Kindle 2 is purpose-built for reading with a high-resolution 6-inch electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, which lets users read for hours without the eyestrain caused by reading on a backlit display. More than 230,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 103 of 110 current New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which are typically $9.99. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than 1,200 different blogs are also available. Kindle 2 is available for pre-order starting today for $359 at http://amazon.com/kindle2 and will ship February 24.

Reuters and others are reporting that Amazon.com is expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle electronic reader on Monday.

While the Kindle is a tiny part of Amazon’s web retail business, it gets a ton of buzz, and a new version has been much speculated about on the web.  The question is whether mainstream consumers are really ready to buy it, particularly in the current economic environment.

“We think Kindle will be an interesting product which the high-end consumers love, particularly investment bankers traveling in from Connecticut,” Bernstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay says in the Reuters story. ”We don’t think it will be a large penetration object any time soon.”

To help with mainstreamers, the Wall Street Journal writes,  Amazon is also expected to say it has acquired a new work by best-selling novelist Stephen King that will be available exclusively, at least for a time, on Kindle.

“Many publishers have long feared that Amazon would persuade a major author to write for its Kindle on an exclusive basis. Although retailers such as Barnes & Noble Inc. have long published their own books, they have struggled to find distribution outside their own stores. But Amazon has already proven that it can sell as many Kindles as it can manufacture. Indeed, Amazon is working to overcome the supply problems that have plagued the device,” says the Journal.

We won’t know all the details until later today, so stay tuned. For now, engadget has what appear to be some early images of the new version.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has a piece today on Plastic Logic, which also makes an electronic book device. The article says that Plastic Logic will “announce partnership deals on Monday that it says will bring a number of major publications to its planned device.”

Keep an eye on:

• Satellite mogul Charles Ergen made an unsolicited offer late last year to take control of Sirius XM Radio Inc and was rebuffed, according to people familiar with the situation to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com)
• Most media companies are cutting back on investments but Comcast’s SportsNet is putting money into studio improvements and new programming and revamping its Web sites to bring in more national advertising dollars (NY Times)
• Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant received a “whole lotta love” at the Grammy Awards Sunday, winning five prizes including album of the year for an acclaimed collaboration with bluegrass queen Alison Krauss (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

NBC’s sports department is having quite a year. We all know about the Olympics, but now it appears they are raking in money for the 2009 Super Bowl.

The broadcaster said yesterday that it has sold 85 percent of its commercial time for the game — and a dozen spots have gone for $3 million.

It’s worth remembering that there was some snickering when word spread that NBC wanted to sell time for $3 million. I mean, come on! $3 million? In this economy?

As everyone is pointing out this morning, NBC’s Super Bowl success is a reminder that advertisers really want to be involved in the biggest events, where they can reach mass audiences.

But how far will they go? After all, $3 million for 30 seconds? What does that get you on local radio these days — a year of advertising time? And there’s no question that advertisers are facing a tough economic environment, particularly those in the auto and financial services sectors (both huge advertising industries). Let’s not forget that GM recently decided not to buy any advertising time during the Oscars or the Emmys.

Clearly, NBC is doing just fine with the Super Bowl. But where is the breaking point?

Keep an eye on:

• Film studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp is in a deal with Zed Group to co-develop mobile entertainment projects, based on Lions Gate films, TV shows and music (Reuters)
• Doubts about New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s future could sideline potential new endorsement deals,  some sports marketing experts say (USA Today)
• Amazon has hired a senior Microsoft executive to lead its national ad sales (NY Post)

(Photo: Reuters)

Clicks-and-mortar, PC-to-TV, T-Commerce. These are technology industry ideas that are resuscitated every couple of years only to fade into obsolescence.

In the case of the latter, T-Commerce, or Television Commerce,  the ability to click a remote and buy something that has appeared on television has seen its fair share of restarts over the last two to three decades. Big players from Time Warner to Barry Diller have tried it and failed. Forrester’s Josh Bernoff once called the concept buying “Jennifer Aniston’s sweater.”

Now digital video recorder technology maker TiVo and online retailer Amazon.com are the latest to give it a go. The idea is the same — Watch, Click, Buy. The experience might even be easier this time around. For starters, consumers are starting to get comfortable with the idea of interacting with on-screen cues, like clicking on ads on TiVo to watch, say, a longer BMW commercial. Consumers are also pretty comfortable with shopping on Amazon these days.

Making all this work this time around could be the conversations advertisers have with program producers. Branded entertainment or product placement — Ford sponsoring NBC’s “Knight Rider”, for example – is commonplace these days. It’s not hard to see how collaboration among TiVo, advertisers and programmers could make this work.

Enabling screen overlays during a program to hawk what’s on the show would require nothing more than a deeper conversation between advertisers, programmers and networks, TiVo’s director of broadband services Evan Young tells us. These conversations are going on, he says. 

The only catch? TiVo’s only got about 4 million subscribers and the company tell the New York Times its growth is no longer really in that business anymore. Problem is that’s where most of their revenue is generated.

(New York Times)

Keep an eye on:

• Apple summer outlook light, plugs upcoming new product launches. (Reuters)
• New York AG may sue Comcast over Net child porn. (Reuters)
• YouTube divorcee crushed in court. (Gawker)
• XM narrows losses, still awaiting FCC decision on merger. (Reuters)
• Time Warner Cable, Verizon duel to the death in New York. (WSJ)

(Photo: Reuters)

A growing list of non-starters to connect PCs-to-TVs in recent years hasn’t stopped more from trying. Amazon and TiVo are making another run at the idea.

Amazon hopes rejiggering its digital movies download service to add a streaming feature for some 40,000 movies will be the trick to lure viewers, the New York Times reports. Lucky owners of Sony’s Bravia line of TVs will also now be able to access the Amazon’s Video On Demand service directly from their TV without linking up to computers.

Separately, TiVo — which has a separate deal with Amazon to let customers view films and shows downloaded from Amazon’s Unbox store directly on TVs — landed a deal to get YouTube videos on the boobtube.

Add to that list recent developments including Netflix’s launch of a small set-top box that lets its subscribers stream a limited selection of films over the Internet directly to TVs and a deal announced this week to do the same over Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console.

Seems this is a concept that may yet have legs (or may be the equivalent of a tech/media industry zombie).

Keep an eye on:

• MySpace China aims to double headcount after 1 year and target urban professionals. (Reuters)
• There’s little interest in buying AOL, but that hasn’t stopped Time Warner from shopping it. (NYTimes)
• Former AOL’ers launch documentary film site SnagFilms. (Reuters)

(Photo: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Reuters)