Microsoftseems to be planning to support audio books from Audible.com on its Zune line of portable media players by the end of 2008. According to sources at both companies, Microsoft and Audible have worked out a deal that will enable Microsoft to support Audible’s audio book format. Neither company has offered any information on when Audible support might be available to Zune owners, save to note that it should be available by the end of 2008 (by which point, Microsoft will also no doubt have debuted new Zune models.
Tag Archive: Audible
Amazon Acquires Audible.com for $300M
Returning to the focus on books that launched its now behemoth retail business, Amazon.com announced on Thursday that it had purchased Audible.com, a New-Jersey-based provider of spoken word content. The company reportedly paid $300 million for the company, which will bring its library of audiobooks under Amazon’s flag.
“Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry,” said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s senior vice president for worldwide digital media, in a statement. The site offers over 80,000 programs in total, from books, newspapers and magazines to television, radio and original programming.
iriver Takes T10 to 2GB
iriver has revved up its T10 portable media player: the diminutive units now sport a 2 GB memory capacity, and now offer direct support for spoken word content from Audible.com—and also ship with and offer for a free selected Audible.com book download.
The iriver T10 is a PlaysForSure-compatible flash-based digital media player offering up to 45 hours of music playback time on a single AA battery. The T10 supports music subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody, offers an integrated FM tuner and recorder, a voice recording function, and an integrated color display. The T10 works with MP3, WMA, and Ogg Vorbis audio files (and now with material from Audible.com, but, alas, does not work with AAC or protected content from Apple’s iTunes Music Store), and supports USB 2.0 for transfer to and from Windows XP PCs.
Audible and Bookspan Open Digital Boutiques
Digital audiobook provider Audible, Inc. and book marketer Bookspan have announced the launch of "audio boutiques" featuring Audible digital content at six of Bookspan’s biggest Web sites, including Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, Literary Guild, and the Doubleday Book Club. The Bookspan sites now feature full-blown Audible online browsing and purchasing features, enabling customers to sample audiobooks for free, then purchase and download selections from Audible’s extensive 70,000+ hours of digital spoken word content.
Bookspan is a leading direct marketer of general interest and specialty books, operating more than 40 clubs with nearly 9 million members, with brands like Book-of-the-Month Club going back many decades.
XM Audible Store Opens
XM Satellite Radio and spoken audio source provider Audible announced today they had launched a joint download store featuring content from both companies. The new website is known as the XM Audible Store.
The XM Audible Store, XM said, will allow consumers the ability to download the popular XM programs “The Bob Edwards Show†and “Opie and Anthony†as some of the 25,000 to 35,000 audio books, audio magazines, newspapers and radio programs that Audible makes available to for a fee to compatible digital media players and mobile devices.
Handheld Plays XM Satellite and Audible
The new handheld portable players will hit the market sometime in 2006 and will allow you to play Audible spoken word content which is downloaded using your PC, as well as the XM satellite radio service.
Audible will also offer popular XM talk programs via the Audible Web site this year, beginning with The Bob Edwards Show and Opie and Anthony.
Also this year, XM will produce a new Audible audiobook program for broadcast on XM Satellite Radio that will consist of features, interviews, and news focusing on the rich world of audiobooks and other spoken-word listening available at www.audible.com. Audible will co-executive produce the program and offer it for download at Audible.com.
NFL Game Broadcasts Coming To iPods
“The recordings will be available for purchase through Apple’s iTunes Music Store, which has an existing relationship with Audible, and other sites that sell audio over the Internet, according tothe NFL and Audible.
The first recordings of football games for sale under the agreement will be this Sunday’s NFL conference championships, which will be available on the Internet the following morning.”
Read more at Silicon Valley.com
Source: Associated Press


