Amazon can dominate the mainstream digital content markets while providing wholesale infrastructure to the more niche digital content markets.

Wonder how this will feed into their acquisition strategy?

If Amazon removes the DRM and the requirement for custom software I’ll start buying immediately. I have a 1 hour commute each day to work. I’d love to buy audiobooks but DRMed books are not going to play in my Mp3 read built in car stereo

I think the time spent listening to my Ipod is probably split roughly 50/50 between books and music.

There are also a remarkable number of situations where listening to a book is just easier than reading one. Think gymns, airports and the like.

Another benefit (being in South Africa) is that there are no shipping charges, which in the case of normal books can be expensive.

Finally, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the people reading the books. Often the readers turn the experience into something you just can’t get with normal books.

I think the tie with Amazon is great. It sounds like Amazon will also soon be the first international shop where I can legally buy MP3’s with a South African credit card. Up to now none of the legal international stores, including ITunes, wanted my money.

Now, if they sell the audio books for a dollar or two but restrict it to the Kindle you make might a good argument for the acquisition, but I get the feeling they are paying a premium for a product line without much growth ahead of it.

It’s all about what they do with the business, not the existing revenue streams.

I think the purchase is a smart move by Amazon (I wonder if Apple should have moved quicker), and that their duel physical and digital strategy puts them in a very strong position.

See my take over at last100.com

Amazon is able to place these future bets because of the company’s strong position as an e-retailer of physical media. This is very similar to the advantage that Nextflix has over Apple’s iTunes movie rentals for example: the move away from physical to digital will be a gradual and messy one, tangled up in issues such as poorly designed technology, entrenched business models and pre-digital licensing — not to mention, in some instances, the lack of consumer appetite. Any company that is able to hedge its bets, competing hard in the physical world, while it invests in and waits for the digital world to catch up, is going to be in a pretty strong position; presuming of course that they execute well during the transition.

its like Apple buying a record label to boost iPod Sales . good in theory but very hard to pull on practice . they might want to use it like iTune store but i seriously doubt it will work

i would love to have my Audiobook + Digital Book on Video iPod but to carry a separate device just for that is too much a trouble for me . with companies like scribd.com a lot of E book Style content is available for free .
but given AMZ’s huge Market cap , a price of $300 Mill can be a Strategic Mistake not a Financial distaster .