News – Item 1: Will Random House align with Amazon in the Great eBooks Price War? Bufo Calvin does some sleuthing on a Random House executive who worked for 18 months on the Kindle team, then returned to Random House. RH’s Madeline McIntosh actually spoke out against the idea of publishers’ setting of retail eBook prices, so maybe there’s hope that the biggest of the Big Six publishers will break ranks with the Apple Five. MobileRead and Gear Diary have more, including links to the Random House Twitter stream and Facebook page, places you might want to add words of encouragement. Click here for members of the Apple Five. Item 2: Is Amazon planning to give free Kindles to every Amazon Prime member? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch thinks so.
Tech Tip – Inkmesh is checking each hour for new non-public-domain eBooks content. Sweet!
Interview – Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com has been videoblogging since January 1, 2004, and as of January he is now a Kindle author. His new book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, came out in Kindle and other eBook format as well as paper, published by Wiley. We spoke on February 9, 2010, by Skype (including a video recording I’ll post separately) and discussed how eBooks in the future may succeed in providing what I found myself describing as Engaged Social Reading. Steve’s next event promoting his book will be February 25 at 6:30 p.m. at Fenway Park, Boston.
Content – Amazon and the British Library team up to offer for free 65,000 newly scanned literary gems from the 19th century. Coming this spring to a Kindle near you! Note: I was only off a hundred years in referring to the 18th century on the podcast.
Comments – From anonymous, Jean Remple, Greg Montague, James T. Atkinson, and Sean Adams.
HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a brand new 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo. The drawing will at noon on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Elle Moran and Octovo for sponsoring this contest! And thanks to all 165 of you who have signed up as fans of the podcast.
Note: For a guest blog post I wrote at e-ReaderFeeder, titled “How I Learned to Love the Kindle and Start a Podcast,” click here. Thanks to James Zakaria for the invitation!
