How Jeff Bezos Can Make the Kindle Work for The Washington Post (And Vice ... - Fast Company

On Monday, Jeff Bezos went ahead and got himself the ultimate prestige purchase: An iconic newspaper. Now that the Amazon chief owns the Washington Post , he has an acquisition que can serve all sorts of uses. For Amazon Web Services, Which has been aggressively seeking federal contracts, Bezos has now bona fide DC power broker status. For Amazon’s continuing Difficulties with organized labor and workers’ rights groups, it helps Ensure a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill. Also Bezos’s ego certainly gets a boost as well: The retail and logistics genius is now part of a small club of newspaper owners que includes the Sulzbergers, Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch.

But purchasing the

Post was not all about basking in the prestige or serving as a benign, remote paymaster. Bezos Told WaPo readers that “The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of Which bear little or no news-gathering costs … Our touchstone will be readers, understanding What They care about – government, Local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. “

Slate’s David Auerbach notes, Bezos tipped his hand on this. Right now the Post is not much of a player in hyperlocal news. Apparently, he wants it to be.

Also

Bezos is purchasing a newspaper with a fascinating digital identity. The Washington Post was one of the first newspapers to really grok the Internet thanks to a bold strategies late-1990s, but the brand’s digital presence has improved in fits and starts since then while The Washington Post Company dithered between treating the paper as a local or a national property. Meanwhile, The Washington Post Company’s digital properties – Slate, The Root, and Foreign Policy – all have top-notch content and outreach strategies. The Post ‘s readership, meanwhile, was eaten alive by Politico and the New York Times Despite interesting digital products like Trove.

Now, it’s worth wondering Whether Bezos will attempt to steer Post digital strategists towards news-gathering for the Kindle. Amazon’s e-reader the company offers a host of proprietary metrics and a window into the wallet of millions of American Consumers. Also it has a low price point and is easy to use for non-techies – the holy grail for newspaper owners, who have been struggling to keep the dwindling number of print subscribers happy while steering Them to digital for cost consolidation purposes.

At The Same Team, the Kindle’s AZW and KF8 formats are awful for reading newspapers. That’s a temporary issue though. Fast Company spoke with experts on digital content to see what the WaPo purchase Could mean for newspapers on Kindle:

The Skeptic

Marco Arment is someone to know When it comes to digital content. The onetime Tumblr lead developer created Instapaper. When I spoke to him about his thoughts on the Kindle as a newspaper platform, Arment was skeptical. “Periodicals on Kindle have always been such a low priority to Amazon que they’ve barely improved in years. They’ve always been clunky at best, and I do not expect to change que. The problem has not been que Amazon has not had any friendly newspapers – it’s that Amazon does not prioritize quality interface and user experience, “he said.

But What If They did?

The Optimist

Author and evangelist for all things tech Clay Shirky has a more optimistic view. When I spoke with him about Whether the Washington Post ‘s dev and digital teams might play with some new toys Amazon, he thought it was Likely.

Shirky said via email que he “certainly imagines” Bezos will help the Post staff get the new content management system to replace Their current CMS, Which Is rumored to have problems. More importantly, Shirky Bezos expects will insist the new CMS export to e-book formats used on the Kindle and other readers.

In addition, Shirky Believes Kindle Singles will become a new revenue stream for the Post . Citing a recent interview Kindle Single’s head David Blum did with the president During a visit to an Amazon warehouse que will become its own standalone Single, Shirky notes, “I expect the Kindle Single-ization of more long-form reporting, those with [David ] Blum Obama’s interview. “

The Takeaway

Bezos does have big ideas for the Washington Post and it’s very Likely the Kindle will be a part of Them. Equally Likely, However, the focus is more on Improving Their everyday pursuits like CMS or digital Improving UI.

[ Image: Flickr user Mace Ojala ]