Author: Staci D. Kramer

What can you expect at paidContent 2010: Discussing the Economics of Content? Just what we promised when we announced our first namesake conference: a forward-looking discussion of the major issues and opportunities facing us, staying away from the religious arguments that often arise when discussing the topic of paid content, focusing instead on business strategies and models that are working, the people behind them, and the cross-platform approach to developing diverse revenue streams. The result is an agenda packed with Q&As and panel discussions —and a roster of speakers that includes the leadership of The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT), top execs from Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Thomson Reuters; (NYSE: TRI) leaders from the Financial Times, CNN, ESPN, Discovery, AOL, Google and more.

Our newest additions include a Q&A with Amanda Richman, EVP and Managing Director of Digital, MediaVest USA, on the intersection of advertising and paid content; David Verklin, CEO, Canoe Ventures; Lincoln Millstein, SVP for Digital Media, Hearst Newspapers; and Elinor Hirschhorn, EVP and Chief Digital Officer, Simon & Schuster.

One area we’ll cover is less about paid content—and more about the challenges created by the expanding class of free-content distributors, or, as we call it, The Rise of Content Super-Distributors.

Content-generating machines like Demand Media, Associated Content, Mahalo, About.com—and now AOL’s new Seed.com—are fueled by the role of search as a content discovery tool and heavy doses of SEO. Is this the future for a big subsector of the content industry? Will this mass amount of content swamp the smaller scale work of traditional and new outlets and their chances for new pay models or provide a new source of inexpensive content?  How can super-distributors avoid being viewed as content farms? Our founder Rafat Ali will moderate what promises to be an energetic session with Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development, Discovery Communications; (NSDQ: DISCA) Shawn Colo, Co-Founder, Demand Media; Cella Irvine, CEO, About.com; Patrick Keane, CEO, Associated Content; and Marty Moe, SVP, AOL (NYSE: AOL) Media. Our conferences are designed to encourage 360-participation so expect to hear from people in front of the stage as well as on it,

Register today to be part of the conversation.

Special thanks to our paidContent 2010 sponsors: Platinum: Oracle; Gold: Rubicon Project, Gigya, RR Donnelley and Lunch: The New York Times

The groundwork has already been laid and now it’s official: RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) is spinning off music service Rhapsody in the hopes of giving both companies a better chance at success. Real will reduce its interest in the Rhapsody America joint venture to below 50 percent to match Viacom’s, giving up control of Rhapsody and making room for more investors. Real will contribute some cash; MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) will put in advertising. The new company, which will operate independently, will be known as Rhapsody.

The SEC filing comes scant weeks after the resignation of founder Rob Glaser as CEO but was well in the works before he gave up the operating role, keeping that of chairman. Acting CEO Robert Kimball described the decision to remove Rhapsody “as a significant first step in making RealNetworks a more focused and profitable company”—stressing that the digital music service is, from Real’s perspective, being given everything it needs to succeed as “the largest pure play digital music service in the market.” I’m sure he means it but in reality that may be a stretch. What would give Rhapsody the ability to succeed on its own when it hasn’t been able to thrive under so many other circumstances?

The details: As part of the transaction, RealNetworks will contribute $18 million in cash, along with the Rhapsody brand, to the new company, while MTV Networks will contribute a $33 million “advertising commitment.” MTV Networks and RealNetworks will each get two board seats; there will also be an independent director agreed upon by both firms. A spokesman tells us that the existing Rhapsody management team will stay in place. The spinoff is expected to be completed late this quarter.

Related

• Rob Glaser Out as RealNetworks CEO; Robert Kimball President and Acting CEO
• RealNetworks’ COO John Giamatteo Quietly Resigns
• MTVN And RealNetworks Talking On Reorg of Rhapsody Music JV; Could Include Spinoff/Sale
• RealNetworks Lays Off 12 At Rhapsody; Less Focus on Desktop Client & Edit

When Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) announced its Nook e-reader in October, the ability to pursue a dual in-store and online sales strategy appeared to be one of the clear advantages it might have over Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). But, as we first reported then, the chain didn’t plan to sell Nooks to go in all its stores for the 2009 holidays—and, as it turned out, the combination of demand and distribution issues kept the device from store shelves. Instead, most people who bought Nooks at B&N stores were placing online orders for delivery weeks or months into the future—not buying them for same-day use. I watched in one store as someone changed his mind pre-Christmas about buying a Nook because he wouldn’t get it until February.

But B&N says that’s all about to change now, at least in some stores. Hoping to get a retail boost from Valentine’s Day, the chain plans to stock most stores with Nooks by mid-week—even promising to update an in-store locator chart daily starting Wednesday. The popular themes in response to the news? Too little, too late or Nook meets Godzilla aka iPad and inevitably loses. Both are short-sighted.

Barnes & Noble stumbled with software and distribution but the Nook is still a potentially appealing device, especially to those more interested in a dedicated e-reader than a multi-purpose tablet. Fanboys, fangirls and early adopters may not flinch at the iPad’s price range but $259 leaves wallet room for a Kate Spade cover and a lot of books. In-store sales should also help when it comes to competing with the Kindle, which can only be ordered online. Amazon plays matchmaker for people who want to try a Kindle; B&N has working hands-on displays in every store. If people can try, buy and start reading the same day—or get instant gift gratification—Nook should have an edge, at least for the next few months. 

—Software update: As for the software knocks, B&N says users should see improvements with new release Nook v1.2. Devices are being updated automatically over the air this week or users can download it themselves. Among the promised changes:  Better in-store access to free WiFi, easier to find which books can be shared, and, a personal favorite that covers a multitude of sins, “overall system improvements and battery optimization.”

—Keeping connected: About that enhanced WiFi access. B&N wants owners to see the Nook as an in-store device, encouraging users to bring their devices into stores for access to exclusive content or offers through the store’s free WiFi. That push begins in earnest now with a free short story, a cupcake recipe, a 10 percent discount on CDs if the user shows the clerk the Nook, and more.

Related

• The E-Book Marketplace: Does Anybody Really Know What Price It Is?
• How Do E-Readers Stack Up With iPad In The Mix? Use Our Chart As A Guide
• Nevermind iPad, Kindle’s Flame To Still Burn Strong
• B&N Rush To Market With Nook Comes At A Cost
• First Take: Nook Ready To Try; Buy? Not So Fast
• Barnes & Noble Won’t Sell Nook To Go In All Stores
• Barnes & Noble Tries To Stake E-Reader Claim With Wi-Fi, 3G And A Dash Of Color; On Sale Nov. 30

Someone at Macmillan has a sense of humor. When I landed on the site Saturday night to check on e-book pricing and availability following Amazon’s one-week banishment, the book being promoted at the top of the front page was Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone about pricing as a “collective hallucination.” More than fitting as Macmillan and other publishers challenge Amazon’s mission to sell most e-books for $9.99.

Among the current collective hallucinations about e-book pricing: Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) stands alone in trying to keep prices lower and publishers can’t set rates. Publishers haven’t been able to set Amazon’s rates but Macmillan is selling books online for the price it prefers—while linking to other sites with lower or sometimes similar pricing. Case in point: best-seller Sarah’s Key disappeared last Friday during a power play between Amazon and Macmillan. (See our chart Pricing E-Books: A Snapshot.) Macmillan said it was switching to an “agency” or commission model where it sets the rate and e-tailers get a commission (usually 30 percent) and by the beginning of March would be pricing new books and bestsellers higher. Amazon retaliated by removing all Macmillan from its print and Kindle stores, but within days went public with its plans to follow the new pricing scheme. Late last week the print versions started to return; paidContent can confirm the Kindle downloads are back, too.

At what price? For now, Sarah’s Key is $9.99 for Kindle and for BN.com (NYSE: BKS), which describes it as 28 percent below list price. The e-book is selling for list price of $13.95 at Macmillan.com, where it can be purchased in Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) PDF and eReader formats, and Mobipocket. The $13.95 matches the list price of the trade paperback—which runs $7.96 on Amazon and $10.04 at Borders. Macmillan is charging more than the going rate of a print edition for an online edition. Amazon is too but it also discounts the $25 hardback to $17, which is considerably more than the Kindle edition.

When Macmillan implements its new scheme in March, some e-books could wind up with lower prices but new releases are likely to be $12.95 and $14.95. In an ideal world, prices would ratchet back after the book has been out for a while and e-book prices would take the lower costs of digital distribution into account but it could be months before we get any real gauge. One possible wrench: Apple’s desire to wear the white hat for publishers and its willingness to go in a different direction with e-book prices than it did with music by encouraging a new release price around $15 and promising not to discount a la Amazon and B&N. If Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) promotes a sliding scale, that could make a difference.

Meanwhile, Amazon is pre-selling Game Change—a hot political book that HarperCollins has kept from e-book editions since it published Jan. 11 in the hopes of selling more hardbacks—on Kindle for $8.91; when the book is finally available Feb. 22, the price goes up to $9.99. The hardback is $13 on Amazon, list $27.99. The book mentioned at the top of this story came out in January and there’s no sign of its arrival as an e-book so no way for me to impulse buy. Hachette, which is joining Macmillan in the switch, told literary agents that it would promise same-date release as part of the change, according to GalleyCat.

About those higher prices: If all publishers switching to the agency model follow suit—and add scaling as print books shift in price or release dates fade in the distance—it will go a long way to appeasing readers currently supporting the nascent e-book sector. If they add e-book-only extras, as Apple and others have encouraged with music and albums, that will help support the higher price. Ditto, if they come up with a combo print/e-book version or guarantee access to text-to-audio features on the Kindle and other devices. Over the two years that I’ve been buying e-books, I’ve noticed that when an e-book costs more than $10—and in some cases, more than $7 or so, that either makes it a library book for me or a book that I’ll consider buying in print if I know others who will read it. Publishers who leave readers and book buyers out of the equation when they set these price plans may still win the round—but they’ll lose the game.

Related

• Hachette Joins Macmillan In Rejecting $9.99 Baseline E-Book Pricing
• Amazon To Customers: ‘We Will Have To Capitulate To Macmillan’
• How Do E-Readers Stack Up With iPad In The Mix? Use Our Chart As A Guide
• Amazon Unveils New Kindle Royalty Option; Incentive To Keep E-Book Prices Down
• @ eBook Summit: Sony’s Haber: You Can’t Make Money Selling E-Books For $9.99; DRM Is A Good Thing

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt tipped Twitter followers to watch the third quarter of the Super Bowl carefully Sunday for a sign that hell’s frozen over. It seems the search company is making a move that Schmidt insisted it didn’t need and wouldn’t do: brand advertising. John Battelle’s source says the ad being aired is Parisian Love, embedded below. Cute online but will it fly during live football? I’ll be watching the meters for that response.

Update: As expected, my HD set was just taken over by a giant white Google search screen showing Parisian Love. Got chuckles in my living room from the viewer seeing it for the first time. What did you think? Was the 60-second ad worth as much as $5 million?

I agree with Danny Sullivan—it’s no coincidence that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has been splashing out on Bing ads, some of them pretty eye catching. An ad for NexusOne might be more logical but could come with fullfillment and customer service issues. This ad is about the core of Google—and if you use Google search, they can pitch you anything right from the site. Google can afford a brand splurge every now and then more than it can afford to sit on a big lead and hope others’ marketing doesn’t work.

Schmidt’s explanation via corporate blog: “We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.” Oh, and would you please watch the other videos in the series?

Did Google score?: A 5.78 from USA Today’s Ad Meter panel, well down in the rankings; by comparison, the #1 ad—Betty White and Abe Vigoda for Snickers—scored 8.68.

But we’re close to a sellout for our first namesake conference so hurry if you want to be part of the paidContent:2010 conversation about the hottest topic around: the economics of content. The full-day event is at TheTimesCenter, Feb.19, from 8:15 to 5ish with a casual get together to wind down as we head into the weekend. When we say full day, we mean it: a lunch interview with metering on the menu for the top brass from The New York Times—Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Chairman and Publisher; Janet L. Robinson, President and CEO and Martin Nisenholtz, SVP, Digital Operations— plus Q&As with Hilary Schneider, EVP for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) North America and Devin Wenig, CEO for Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) Markets. Forrester’s James McQuivey will kick the day off with an industry analysis about consumer attitudes towards paying for access.

Then there are the panels: five sessions designed to go deep and wide when it comes to paid content—and into some of the competition from sites designed to flood the zone with ad-supported copy on every subject and events, as long as it draws search results. Topics include:

—News and how to make it without losing advertising dollars, with Google’s Josh Cohen, FT’s Rob Grimshaw and CNN.com’s KC Estenson (Grimshaw will update us on his company’s subscription success and micropay plans before the panel discussion begins);

—Subscriptions with Journalism Online co-founder Steve Brill, MOG’s David Hyman and players to be named later;

—Cross-Industry JVs designed to overcome some of the barriers companies face alone, with Vevo’s Rio Caraeff, Next Issue Media’s John Squires and Pali Research’s Rich Greenfield.

—Super Distribution of Free Content, a panel as full as some of the sites. Discovery’s Bruce Campbell, Demand Media’s Shawn Colo, About’s Cella Irvine; Associated Content’s Patrick Keane and AOL’s Marty Moe.

—Portable Content: Between the uptick in e-readers and the mobile apps rolling out daily, this space is equal parts confusing and exciting. Games, news, user-gen, passive, interactive—you name it, you can do it. But can you make money?  Tapulous’s Bart Decrem and ESPN’s John Kosner think so. We’ll hear from them and others in the portable content biz.

All this for $1,195 now that the Early Bird is over. Register here.

We’ll be announcing more speakers within the next week, but read on for the roster we’ve confirmed so far.

Special thanks to our paidContent:2010 sponsors: Platinum: Oracle; Gold: Rubicon Project, Gigya, RR Donnelley and Lunch: The New York Times

Steven Brill, Co-Founder, Journalism Online; Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development, Discovery Communications; (NSDQ: DISCA) Rio Caraeff, CEO, Vevo; Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News; Shawn Colo, Co-Founder, Demand Media; Bart Decrem, Co-Founder and CEO, Tapulous; Kenneth ‘KC’ Estenson, SVP and GM, CNN.com; Rich Greenfield, Co-Head, Pali Research; Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com; David Hyman, CEO, Mog; Cella Irvine, President and CEO, The About Group; Patrick Keane, CEO, Associated Content; John Kosner, SVP and GM, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) Digital Media; James L. McQuivey, Ph.D., VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research; Marty Moe, SVP, AOL (NYSE: AOL) Money & Finance; Quincy Smith, partner, Code Advisors and former head of CBS Interactive; (NYSE: CBS) and John Squires, Interim Managing Director, Next Issue Media

Five major publishers were highlighted by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) at Wednesday’s unveiling of the iPad and the iBookstore. Two days later, one of them was starring in a different e-reader drama when reports emerged that Macmillan titles were no longer being sold directly by Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN). Macmillan wants to set its own prices, preferably in the $12.99-$14.99 range, instead of wholesaling them to Amazon, which prefers lower rates even when it means selling at a loss. Amazon wants to sell Kindles and to make e-books into a kind of currency. Macmillan wants to keep consumers from getting in to the habit of thinking e-books are $10 or less. Amazon wants to sell more books. Guess who is caught in the middle.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent prompted the weekend drama with a Thursday lay-down-the-law visit to Amazon, where he told execs the e-tailer could stick with the current pricing but wouldn’t get new titles and would have to winnow others. As he explained in a full-page ad in a special Saturday edition of Publishers Lunch, by the time he got back to New York Friday, Macmillan books were being pulled off the virtual shelves.

Amazon ended its radio silence about the decision late Sunday afternoon with a blunt (and belated) message to customers. The gist: we tried to hold the line on low e-book prices, now it’s up to you. The full message posted on the Kindle forum is below:

——————————————————————————
From the Amazon Kindle team:

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.

Related

• How Do E-Readers Stack Up With iPad In The Mix? Use Our Chart As A Guide
• Amazon’s ‘Millions’ of Kindles Are Drop In $9.5 Billion Sales Bucket; App Will Be On iPad
• Amazon Unveils New Kindle Royalty Option; Incentive To Keep E-Book Prices Down
• Virtual ATM for Amazon: Piles On Kindle Fees, Increases Book Costs Outside U.S.

When we did the first version of this chart heading into the 2009 holiday sales season, four contenders—including the unexpected Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) Nook—were set to crowd the instant-download e-reader field that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) had to itself for the last two years. Within weeks it already had changed: the iRex missed its 2009 ship date, PlasticLogic released more info on the Que, Amazon kept fine tuning the Kindle, and more e-readers flooded the zone at CES.

Then, the landscape tilted again Wednesday with the beyond-hyped unveiling of the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPad, the tablet designed to be a better e-reader within a multipurpose media approach. Sure, some of the other devices offer the ability to listen to MP3 music and Kindle users can surf some elementary web waves. But Apple is the only one claiming to have a device that is as good an e-reader as it is a video player, music center or internet portal. (It’s also the only one where you can still use the platform for other e-readers: both Kindle and Barnes & Noble have iPhone e-book apps and are expected to be on the iPad.)

So how does the iPad stack up against its more single-minded competition? We can’t say yet how it really compares to reading a novel on a Kindle, textbooks on a Kindle DX or business pdfs on a Que. What we can do is lay out the specs and features side by side. (Click on on that link or the image for full-size version.) We’ve limited the comparison to the highest-profile devices that include 3G access and or Wi-Fi as an option. By size, the main competition is the Kindle DX and the upcoming PlasticLogic Que. In the paperback-size division, it’s the Kindle, the Nook and the Sony (NYSE: SNE) Daily Edition.

Update: Many thanks to those who posted or sent in suggestions about how to make this better; we’ve been incorporating many of them in real time. Some suggestions are a matter of interpretation so may not be reflected in this weekend’s updates but we will take them into consideration for future charts.

Related

• How Wireless E-Readers Stack Up
• iPad: Sure, It’s Easy To Navigate And View Photos, But How Do You Type?
• @ CES: Video: Plastic Logic CEO Archuleta Demo’s The Que
• First Take: Nook Ready To Try; Buy? Not So Fast
• Kindle’s Gift For The Holidays? Native PDF
• Sony E-Reader Announces Newspaper Partners in Drips: 19 More after News Corp
• Ten Predictions For The E-Reader/E-Book Market In 2010

We waded through the iPad copy flood so you don’t have to. You can catch up on our coverage —and sample some of the best and most interesting follow up to Wednesday’s announcement from around the web in the links below. 

»  Walt Mossberg says the iPad could possibly create a new category of gadget while David Pogue says it’s too early to tell. (For once, Frick and Frack had to wait along with everyone else for a first look.)

»  On Bits, Nick Bilton explains why the iPad will kill Amazon’s Kindle, and Brad Stone argues it won’t.

»  Ten things the device is missing. [Wired]

»  Conde, Hearst and Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX) weigh in. [Digits]

»  Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) isn’t happy about the lack of Flash (and neither are a lot of users). [Gizmodo]

»  Why editors and publishers should stay away from app development. [SimsBlog]

»  McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) says it wasn’t snubbed from the launch event. [Digital Daily]

»  Fujitsu calls dibs on the “iPad” name. [NYT]

»  Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) exec Otto Berkes’ “unique” opinion. [Otto Berkes]

»  What the gadget could mean for Asian suppliers. [WSJ]

»  The real reason why it will be a success. [Ultimi Barbarorum]

»  iPad simulator gives glimmer of hope of a camera in the future. [iPhone Alley]

To hear Steve Jobs tell it, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) created the laptop and the smartphone. Is there room for a third category? Jobs says there is if it’s better at tasks than the laptop or the smartphone. “Some people have thought that’s a netbook. The problem is notebooks aren’t better than anything … they’re just cheaper.” So how will Apple fill the gap? With the iPad, just unveiled by Jobs in San Francisco, where our Tricia Duryee is reporting live. 

Meanwhile, I’m hopping from feed to feed as Jobs demonstrates from a couch. (His tech people are having a better day than Steve Balmer’s at CES. Chalk up about another win for Mac guy.) The form factor—as many expected looks like an overgrown iPhone. It has a built-in iTunes store, multi-touch, auto-directional viewing in portrait or landscape, interacts with nearby PCs and smartphones. But what about content beyond your own music collection, photos and iTune downloads? He shows YouTube, now available in HD as well, snippets from Modern Family, Star Trek, and Up. As for practical apps, sorry, Bing, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Streetview gets the shout out as Jobs shows how to find a sushi bar from the iPad. Tons of details below.

Specs: .5 inch thin; 1.5 lbs; 9.7 inch IPS display; 1GHz Apple A4 chip; 16GB – 64GB flash memory; 802.11n WiFi; Bluetooth 2.1; 10-hour battery. Jobs: “It screams.”

The App Store: And now for the real heart of the iPad—third-party apps: all iPhone apps should work out of the box and can be used either pixel-for-pixel or enlarged by going to double pixel.  ESPN’s just launched SnowCross is the demo app for graphic-intense apps. EA showed off a striking touch-enabled Need for Speed Shift. As had been floated, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT)—demoed by Martin Nisenholtz (Arthur Sulzberger’s in Davos)— has folded in embedded video. The highly popular MLB At Bat upsizes its live video, looks like it adds in-game chat. The SDK for iPad apps comes out today.

And now for the e-reader, Jobs is showing off the new iBook app next to an Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle and an iBookstore that looks like book shelves and operates like buying from iTunes. (Slide show with images from gdgt) It’s scheduled to open this afternoon. Now Jobs is showing off the Ted Kennedy memoirs that the publisher deliberately kept off Kindle; price: $14.99. Publishers on board include Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette and Harper Collins.

Pricing and shipping: Still with AT&T (NYSE: T) for 3G: Data plans: $14.99 for 250 megs a month, unlimited for $29.99. Free AT&T wifi. No contract. WiFi only models ship in 60 days; 3G models in 90. The price: a bombshell rate of $499 for the base model with WiFi and 16GB; $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64 GB. Add $130 for 3G and the most expensive model is $829. Of course, that doesn’t include what it will cost to accessorize, say adding a case or the handy-dandy wireless keyboard dock. More to come.

Related

• iPad: Sure, It’s Easy To Navigate And View Photos, But How Do You Type?
• @ iPad Launch: Apple Unveils iBooks; Brings Developers On Stage To Show Off iPad Features
• iPad: Overseas 3G Deals Unclear Until At Least Summertime

When we decided to present paidContent:2010: Discussing the Economics of Content on Feb. 19 in New York, we knew it was going to be topical and that we would be programming in real time. What we didn’t realize then—or when we picked TheTimesCenter as a location—is just how real time it would be. In fact, while our ad team was signing the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) as the lunch sponsor, we were being told on the editorial side its top execs wouldn’t be available. They didn’t want to commit to a conversation on paid content online while their own decision was hanging. But last week’s news that NYTimes.com will move to a metered system in early 2011 opened the gate. The result: the editorial program for lunch will feature an interview with Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Co. and publisher of its flagship paper; Janet Robinson, president and CEO, and Martin Nisenholtz, SVP, digital operations.

We’ve also added a Q&A with Devin Wenig, the CEO of Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) Markets. He’s an alum of our first Future of Business Media conference, held when he was COO of Reuters just as Thomson and Reuters were merging. Today Wenig is responsible for the global financial services and media businesses.

We’re equally pleased to announce several other additions:

—James McQuivey, VP and principle analyst for Forrester Research, who will open the day with industry analysis about consumer attitudes towards paying for access.

—panelists John Kosner, SVP and GM, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) Digital Media, whose portfolio includes ESPN.com; ESPN360.com; and all content development for mobile, interactive television, interactive gaming and other emerging digital media; and Richard Greenfield, Co-Head Pali Research Media and Cable Systems Equities.

They join an already-strong roster with Hilary Schneider, EVP for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) North America, who will take part in a Q&A; Steven Brill, Co-Founder, Journalism Online; Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development, Discovery Communications; (NSDQ: DISCA) Rio Caraeff, CEO, Vevo; Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News; Shawn Colo, Co-Founder, Demand Media; Bart Decrem, Co-Founder and CEO, Tapulous; Kenneth ‘KC’ Estenson, SVP and GM, CNN.com; Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com; Cella Irvine, President and CEO, The About Group; Patrick Keane, CEO, Associated Content; Marty Moe, SVP, AOL (NYSE: AOL) Money & Finance; Quincy Smith, partner, Code Advisors and former head of CBS Interactive; (NYSE: CBS) and John Squires, Interim Managing Director, Next Issue Media.

Tickets are selling fast so please register now. The $895 Early Bird ends Jan. 31; the price increases to $1,195 on Feb. 1. We can provide a discount for groups of three or more; contact [email protected] for more details.

Special thanks to our paidContent 2010 sponsors, Rubicon Project, Gigya, RR Donnelley, Oracle and The New York Times

Washington Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti took questions from readers online Monday, politely answering all kinds of queries and complaints while shedding the tiniest bit of light on digital plans. The paper, which once upon a time was often ahead of digital bandwagons, is finally going to introduce an iPhone app this quarter after relying on its mobile site to carry all the weight.

Will it be a pay app? Narisetti didn’t address that specifically, but in response to another question said users should ‘“stay tuned” when it comes to a decision on whether or not to charge for online content. Later, he raised the issue of what readers will actually pay for online when a user suggested offering a premium “no ad” edition. As for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) tablet, it doesn’t sound like WashingtonPost.com is on board for the opening round. Some excerpts:

Arlington, VA: Will The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) have a product available on the new Apple tablet?

Narisetti: Hopefully as soon as Apple lets us offer one. Difficult to predict since we too don’t know many of the details behind the tablet.

Washington, D.C.: With the news that the NYT is going to a paywall at the start of 2011, what is the likelihood that the Post will also? Or is there an expectation that Post traffic will increase as the Times’s decreases?

Narisetti: Like most media companies, we believe that our content has value to both readers and advertisers and do want to find ways to get paid for the costs we incur to generate such content—in print and online. Much like subscriptions and advertisements pay for a print paper, it would be good to have a model where both advertisers and readers pay online. But, while we continue to keep a close eye on such announcements as well as some emerging models, no decisions have been made about charging for washington post content online. But, stay tuned.

pay for online post: I subscribe to the paper edition and have for years, but I would pay a little more if I could get the online version with no ads. I go to the Web site several times during the day and it is really annoying sometimes with the invasive ads. I think people would pay a fee to get the same site, just without ads.

Narisetti: Thanks. If, for example, we were to print a paper without any ads, there is simply now (sic) way Washington Post would survive unless we charged way, way more per copy each day. In some ways the web is similar. Our standards for “invasive” ads is actually significantly higher than many news sites and I am constantly pushing back, with a fair amount of success, on what I see as really intrusive ads. I do wonder if readers will be willing to pay a substantial premium for a news site without any ads, given everything is free. We get so much pushback on prices for a paper that costs less than $5 a week even as we happily pay $5 for a Starbucks latte. But your larger point about invasive ads is something that the news side is very aware of.

And, in response to a reader who offered to pay for online news, but not opinion:

Narisetti:  good to know. it is possible some people will only pay for the opinions side and not for the news side (which some could see as a commodity)…i suspect multiple pay models will emerge over the next year or two as we all grapple with this issue of how to fund our news generating costs.

How far we have come since Live 8 …. tonight’s hastily produced multi-country Hope for Haiti Now benefit could wind up being the most-watch digital fundraising event ever. It’s certainly the largest distribution effort, with live streaming of the entire two hours promised on more than three dozen sites in the U.S. and internationally, as well as the sites of cable operators and telcos. The mobile commitment is equally strong, with live streaming across major carriers and devices, also by continuing to collect text donations (“GIVE” to 50555). [9:30 p.m.: The video streaming is going fine on mobile and online but HopeforHaiti.org crashed; if it’s down. donations can go directly to the organizations: Clinton Bush Haiti Fund; United Nations World Food Programme (WFP); Oxfam America; Partners in Health; the Red Cross; UNICEF; and Yele Haiti Foundation.]

On the social media end, all of the stops are being pulled out as companies throw everything they’ve learned and created since the last big digital event—Barack Obama’s inauguration—- at the effort to raise money for Haiti, including Twitter promoting the effort with hashtag #igave across every user profile page. (Maybe we could raise money with a “guess the number of fail whales” contest.) One new idea is Hope For Haiti Now Twitter Tracker from Stamen Design showing the way conversation is spreading globally.

The telethon is just the first part of the fundraising, which continues with audio and video download sales on iTunes, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and Rhapsody. Pre-orders have already started on iTunes for the full performance album ($7.99) and the two-hour video ($2.99), including an exclusive studio track from Jay-Z, Bono, The Edge and Rihanna. Individual performance downloads from Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, John Legend and more will run $.99 each. The music stores, the artists and the record labels are donating all proceeds to the charities included in Hope for Haiti.

Live streaming: The two-hour telethon will be live streamed in its entirety across sites including: ABC.com, AOL (NYSE: AOL), AT&T (NYSE: T) Entertainment, Bebo, Bild Germany, Bing, Buddy TV, Causecast, CBS.com, CNN.com,  Eonline.com, EpixHD.com, Facebook, Fancast, Gawker, GlobalGrind.com, Habbo UK, Huffington Post, Hulu, Metacafe, MSN, MySpace, NBC.com, Oprah.com, OurStage.com, PerezHilton, Rhapsody, Veoh, VEVO, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and YouTube. The live streaming is powered via the Akamai (NSDQ: AKAM) HD Network. Live streaming also will be made available online by major cable and telco operators as well including AT&T, Bright House Networks, Charter (NSDQ: CHTR), Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA), Cox Communications, Mediacom, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Warner Latin America and Wide Open West.

MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) sites including MTV.com, VH1.com, Nick.com, TeenNick.com, AddictingGames.com, ParentsConnect.com, Shockwave.com, ComedyCentral.com, The DailyShow.com, ColbertNation.com, Jokes.com, Atom.com, Spike.com, GameTrailers.com and TVLand.com will all be promoting “Hope for Haiti Now” through live streaming of the event and the celebrity-manned phone banks, text alerts to registered users, on-demand video and post-show clips.

Mobile: The event will be live streamed via Alltel (NYSE: AT), Sprint (NYSE: S), Verizon Wireless, MobiTV, FloTV, via apps on iPhone, Palm (NSDQ: PALM), Inc. and Blackberry, and across MTV Networks mobile sites, which will be promoted via AT&T, PrimeTime2Go, Yahoo Mobile, AOL Mobile and the largest mobile ad networks.

International: Internationally, users can watch via a multi-language site (21 languages), hope.mtv.com, which will include information on the telethon, links to the donation site, a central Facebook connect widget and links to the Twitter Tracker. 

Related

• Haiti Telethon Will Stretch Across Platforms, Countries; Paste Tries Different Approach
• Haiti Update: $22 Million In Donations Pour In By Text Message

One of the biggest knocks toward Amazon’s Kindle has been the closed nature of the Internet-capable device. That starts to dissipate today with word from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) that “later this year” the Kindle Store will start featuring “active content” produced by developers who can suggest their own prices and get 70 percent of the take after delivery costs. The Kindle Development Kit is already in use by a small group of developers including Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) and Handmark, which is building a Zagat app. Amazon is taking names for more to participate in a limited, U.S.-only beta to start in February.

Timed a week in advance of Apple’s anticipated unveiling of a tablet meant to compete on the e-book front, the announcement is the latest sign that Amazon wants to build a better image with publishers and make the device more useful to consumers—within its own limits, of course. Wednesday, the company unveiled a new royalty plan that lays out how publishers who publish e-books through Amazon can make 70 percent.

Developers can’t include “VoIP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way.” They are also banned from offering a “generic reader.” But publishers who have complained about the way Amazon handles pricing would be able to develop their own active content and suggest their own prices. Amazon still keeps the customer relationships, though, which means this isn’t the solution Rupert Murdoch wants. The apps fall into three pricing categories:

—Free: for apps that are smaller than 1MB and use less wireless data than 100KB per user per month. Amazon covers the costs.

—One-time payment: The fee will be split 70-30, net of delivery fees of $0.15 per megabyte, The app has to be priced to cover the costs of downloads and on-going usage.

—Subscription: Same split but for monthly charges.

The apps are limited in size to 100MB; anything larger than 10MB will have to be downloaded via USB, not wireless.

Ian Freed, VP for Kindle, told the New York Times he expects a wide range of programs, including utilities like calculators, stock tickers and casual video games, along with searchable e-books.  Amazon said Handmark is building an active Zagat guide, while Sonic Boom is building word games and puzzles.

—In other Kindle news, it looks like Amazon is offering some heavy book readers the chance to try the e-reader under an unusual program. TechCrunch readers have spotted an offer to buy the Kindle, try it for 30 day and get their money back if they don’t “love” it. The kicker? They get to the keep the Kindle they don’t love—and the branded cover. The offer expires at midnight Jan. 25.

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• Amazon Unveils New Kindle Royalty Option; Incentive To Keep E-Book Prices Down
• Will E-Readers Help Spread Knowledge, Or Wall It Off? Here’s A Scorecard That We Can Use
• Sony E-Reader Announces Newspaper Partners in Drips: 19 More after News Corp
• First Take: Nook Ready To Try; Buy? Not So Fast
• Ten Predictions For The E-Reader/E-Book Market In 2010

Tuesday night, CNN raised more than $7 million for Haitian relief during an quickly planned telethon on Larry King Live. That was small compared to the massive effort led by George Clooney and MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) will reach across the world. Star-studded telethon Help for Haiti Now will air live for two hours from LA, New York, London, and Haiti Friday night at 8 p.m. ET across more than a dozen sites, at least 30 U.S. networks (including all four major broadcasters), several Canadian networks, multiple mobile carriers and several international networks.

The global telethon, which even is supposed to air live on MTV in China, features some of the biggest names in music: Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Bono, The Edge, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, and more, with performances selling on iTunes for 99 cents starting Saturday. All proceeds from the telethon will be split equally between the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund; United Nations World Food Programme (WFP); Oxfam America; Partners in Health; the Red Cross; UNICEF; and Yele Haiti Foundation.

The online outlets taking part include YouTube; Hulu; MySpace; Fancast; AOL; (NYSE: AOL) MSN.com; Yahoo; (NSDQ: YHOO) Bing.com; BET.com; CNN.com; MTV.com; VH1.com; TV.com; and Rhapsody. Mobile streaming includes Alltel (NYSE: AT), AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S), and Verizon. It’s not clear if that includes video. More details in the release and at MTV.com. [Update: Gigya will power live chat across the sites; Facebook and Twitter are official social media partners.]

—Paste magazine: Paste is trying to use music to raise fuins on a smaller scale. The music mag has set up Songs for Haiti, unreleased songs from Ludacris, Of Montreal and more than 200 other artists available as MP3s for anyone who donates money through the site—or says they have donated through other sites. Paste says it will donate 100 percent of the proceeds equally between Doctors Without Borders, The Red Cross, and Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund, but cautions that donations there are not tax deductible.

Update (Jan 20): Micropayment-centric social games site Zynga says 300,000 Zynga players have bought $1.5 million in virtual goods for the WFP effort. The funds came from FarmVille, FishVille, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker. Farmville players alone raised $1 million and 100 percent of money raised went to the WFP.

Related

• Haiti Update: $22 Million In Donations Pour In By Text Message

Turner Broadcasting has had success with pay apps in news, games and sports; now, the Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) unit is turning to the movies. The new Turner Classic Movies app launches today in iTunes for $2.99; versions for Blackberry App World and Android Market are due next month. At first glance, some of the features seem more apt for a free promo app: movie schedules, access to “optimized” versions of the TCM database and movie blog, photos. Amazon’s IMDB app is free and as a user I’d be hard pressed to pay for something it also already does so well. But the TCM app also promises serious video content—hundreds of movie clips, trailers, promos, including some for widescreen—and it has TCM’s own expert library with articles that go deep for nearly every movie the network shows. Plans call for more video and full database access, among other features.

First Look: The video is definitely the killer part of this app for now. Dipping into scenes from The Way We Were, Bridge Over The River Kwai, and more is a nice respite and the clips are lengthy enough to be meaningful, not 30-second snippets. At first, I thought there wasn’t enough video, barely more than a dozen of the movie clips, a batch of trailers, a few promos. But that was what was accessible through the main navigation. Most of the video can be found by looking for a movie on the schedule. Six clips for Battleground, three for That Hamilton Woman, etc. It doesn’t work every time. I struck out on Bang The Drum Slowly, which has no video at all. No John Travolta disco either, not even a trailer. Back to Redford.