Amazon.com buys Audible; March into digital content distribution continues
Amazon.com's march into digital distribution of content continues-this time with plans to acquire Audible for $300 million. — In a statement on Thursday, Amazon said it will acquire Audible …
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon entered 2008 with the Kindle described as a hit and an international rollout of Amazon MP3 planned. The agreement to acquire Audible extends that digital-distribution push from books and music into premium spoken-word audio.
The $300 million transaction was widely picked up across technology and financial outlets, underscoring that Audible is being treated as a strategic content-distribution asset rather than a peripheral retail purchase.
First-order effects
- Amazon gains a planned route into Audible's premium digital spoken-word catalog and customer base, while Audible shifts from an independent provider toward Amazon's distribution network.
- The deal gives Amazon another digital format to place alongside Kindle and Amazon MP3 as it builds a broader content storefront.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and other spoken-word rights holders gain a larger prospective digital outlet, but one increasingly tied to Amazon's retail reach and terms.
- Amazon's digital-content rivals must compete against a retailer able to connect book, music, and spoken-word discovery within one storefront.
Third-order effects
- If Amazon continues using acquisitions to add catalog and format capabilities, digital-content distribution will concentrate around retailers that control both customer discovery and delivery.
- The acquisition points to the digital library becoming a multi-format service, where written, music, and spoken-word media reinforce one another rather than operate as separate stores.
The trend: Amazon is expanding from online retail into a multi-format digital-content distribution platform through catalog and capability acquisition.