Rupert Murdoch and News Corp are apparently looking at the launch of a national news publication that will be distributed via iPad and mobile. The pub would use its own staff but have the assets of other News Corp properties at its disposal. Yesterday we commented on Nomad, the online publication being planned by former media execs in New York. Is this a preview of a post-print era for newspapers?

News Corp. explores national news app for iPad, mobile phones | Company Town | Los Angeles Times.

Former Newsweek President Mark Edmiston and a small group of former print writers and editors are launching Nomad Editions, a publication that will be published specifically for mobile devices. The launch, slated for the fall, will be focused on a number of niches. None are named specifically but surfing and movies are offered as two examples. In a not too subtle swipe at Demand Media‘s low pay scale, Edmiston said that the time is ripe for an online publication that will compensate its writers fairly. He said that writers could make up to $50K-$60K if their nice editions attract 50,000 subscribers. First impression: Sounds like a lot of readers for a startup and a niche publication. Also sounds like a lot of articles, especially since each one will presumably require much more work than what required to together a Demand Media piece.

A Magazine Meant for Mobile – NYTimes.com.

E-books are gaining traction at a surprising rate. In 2009 e-book sales accounted for 2.9% of sales. The figure for 2010, so far, is 8.5%. It is predicted that e-book revs could account for 40% of Simon and Schuster‘s book revs in 3-5 years. It’s now at 8% for the publishers. The big book chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders had best be nimble or face going out of business.

As E-Books Gain, Barnes and Noble Tries to Stay Ahead – NYTimes.com.

Murdoch said to be pursuing an iPad based news application. What’s most interesting is that it will not be tied directly to any News Corp. publication or product. The  Wall Street Journal iPad app has attracted more than 10,000 users at $17.29 per month, earning the company well over $2 million per year.

Rupert Murdoch Rumored to Be Launching Tablet-Targeted News Service | Fast Company.

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange talks about the leaking of Afghanistan documents to his site. Wikileaks (http://www.wikileaks.com) is an interesting model. It’s content is routed thru ISP’s in country with a high level of privacy protection and the path is said to be roundabout to prevent tracking leakers. Assange himself keeps mobile as he feels that he is personally tracked by intel agencies.

[Editor's Note: E-Publishing Notebook is a new Digital Breakfast series that highlights different contemporaneous digital topics within the publishing industry. Today is the second column from Anne Kostick, Partner at the digital (as well as print and web) consulting services company Foxpath IND, who specializes in the transition to and from traditional content publishing and online content management, development, and publishing.]

Digital publishing and selling is a little like running a mom-and-pop shop: the challenge is to make sure you give the customers what they want without giving away the store. And when it comes to e-books, that turns out to be difficult.

At the recent Untethered conference produced in New York by The Big Money.com, the financial business website of WashingtonPost/Slate/Newsweek Interactive, the main topic was … well, even the conference’s title dared not speak its name: “Profitable Media…” (yes, we all want that) “…in the Tablet Era.”  No, they don’t mean aspirin or Alka Seltzer, or Moses on Mount Sinai: they mean the iPad.

You might have expected, from the title’s timidity, to hear more nervousness from the speakers, but you would have been wrong.

From the Washington Post’s chairman Donald Graham to ScrollMotion’s founder Josh Koppel, everyone declared their love for the book while extolling the experience of the iPad. The question was, where does profit come in? Does the iPad render all future e-reading devices (and there are dozens) irrelevant? Where does the e-book go from here?

James Ledbetter, editor of The Big Money, succinctly pointed out one important obstacle that needs clearing in the title of his online article: Amazon and Apple: Free the Data!

Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps estimated that 59 million tablet computers in use by 2015.  The opportunities for magazines and advertisers to reach their target audience through wireless tablets is excellent. Several speakers saw the tablet future as “app-centric” (no surprise, considering iPhone’s expansion) and, most important, multi-platform. Epps pointed out that more phones have shipped with the Android operating system than with iPhone OS, and predicted that the tablet market will look very much like the smart phone market.  Of critical importance will be synching across devices, and, as always, the need for enhanced and custom content for tablet apps.

How to get that enhanced content? More enlightening in many ways was the afternoon-long verbal volleyball among traditional content producers—that is, book publishers—and new-media device producers. Beyond the ever-present discussions of rights and pricing, book executives were optimistic about their industry’s future in e-publishing. Simon and Schuster’s Carolyn Reidy considered books to be taking a new path—changing the form, perhaps—but still a publisher’s product with growing sales and profit in the future.  Perseus Books Group’s David Steinberger said that the digital environment lowers the barriers to marketing and selling books. The next big challenge, then, is converting viewers to the discovery and sale of even more e-books. Brian Murray, CEO of forward-thinking HarperCollins, agreed that the book business is not under threat, but that all publishers have a new opportunity to connect with their readers. But what all publishers need to be figuring out is, how. Note to content creators—consider bundling, consider selling the brand and content, not the delivery system. Consider (and reconsider) the subscription model.

And what happens when everyone is wirelessly reading, commenting, downloading, enhancing, and creating on the fly?  Edward Lazarus of the FCC predicts a real bandwidth crisis as near as the next two or three years (landing neatly in Epps’s time window for 59 million tablet users). And although the government will try to keep up, most speakers agreed that there will be no reining in consumers’ demand for bandwidth now that they’re “untethered.”

Device and reading-platform businesses regard everything, even the iPad’s gigantic launch, as good news. Linda Gagnon, Baker & Taylor’s executive for digital media services and the force behind the new full-color, multimedia Blio reader software, said that it only “validates our approach”—to be device-agnostic. And for those device-specific speakers, such as Anthony Astarita of Barnes & Noble, the producer of the nook eReader, there’s room in the digital future for everyone.

But wait, there’s more: not three days after the conference ended the price wars began: Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s nook dropped to below $200 (compare this to the iPad’s $500 base price), signaling that iPad’s sales-to-date of about 3 million units is, after all, cause for nervousness.

The two words you need to know about the future of Facebook: “Ubiquity” and “China.” Part 2 of last weeks Business of Facebook event.

The Panel

David Berkowitz Senior Director, Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i

Adam Elend Partner, Bright Red Pixels, Co-Creator, WallStrip

David Kirkpatrick Author, The Facebook Effect

Ian Spalter Executive Creative Director, R/GA

Jerry Spiegel Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC

Breakfast Sponsor

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Gotham Media’s Digital Breakfast on “The Business of Facebook” featured experts from the worlds of media, law, advertising and social media to discuss the future and future plans of Facebook. Business plans, competitors, geolocation, Mark Zuckerberg and, in the words of moderator Jerry Spiegel, “the big meatball in the room – privacy” were among the issues discussed.

The Panel

David Berkowitz Senior Director, Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i

Adam Elend Partner, Bright Red Pixels, Co-Creator, WallStrip

David Kirkpatrick Author, The Facebook Effect

Jerry Spiegel Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC

Breakfast Sponsor

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• Exclusive: Discussing the Future of Facebook and the Facebook Ecosystem with CEO Mark Zuckerberg (insidefacebook.com)
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• Zuckerberg: What’s the point of a “huge amount of profit”? (social.venturebeat.com)

[Editor's Note: E-Publishing Notebook is a new Digital Breakfast series that highlights different contemporaneous digital topics within the publishing industry. Today's column comes from Anne Kostick, Partner at the digital (as well as print and web) consulting services company Foxpath IND, who specializes in the transition to and from traditional content publishing and online content management, development, and publishing.]

Book Expo America, the book publishing industry’s annual trade show, conference, and confab, took place at New York’s Javits Convention Center last week in a shortened, compressed schedule that acknowledged the shrinking importance of “bricks-and-mortar” retailers as well as the accelerating growth of digital publishing.

For three intense, session-packed days, publishers, authors, and other industry professionals soaked up seminars on digital rights management, e-book conversion, distribution and pricing, and listened to one another opinionating on the future of the book.  A year ago, the mood on the show floor was gloomy. In the face of hard economic times and bad retail news, many in the industry continued to close their eyes and hope the digital threat would please just go away.  The years-old Google Books law suit continued to drag on; there was marketplace confusion and slow adoption of e-reading devices; Amazon’s apparent stranglehold on e-book sales and prices through its Kindle system seemed unbreakable.

This year the mood has lightened. It’s as if the industry shrugged off its dour thoughts and just said, “Let’s do it.” Instead of waiting for a final resolution to last year’s problems, they’re throwing resources—time, talent, and funds—into joining the game.

Those squarely in the digital side of the business are feeling vindicated, if not elated.

Reps at the booth of LibreDigital a digital publishing solutions company, remarked on the ceaseless human traffic in their aisle, compared to last year’s “tumbleweed.” At the booth of Kobo, Inc., the Toronto-based e-book publisher/distributor, vendor-relations manager Meghan Paton’s customer encounters had all been “really positive.” She had worried that vendors were feeling “scared” about the digital revolution but did not see that reaction; instead, she felt that people “just want to know what’s going on”—they’re ready to learn.

A sampling of the experts’ takes on 2010’s forward movement into e-publishing includes these:

Simba Information, the market research firm, reported that eight percent of the U.S. adult population bought at least one e-book in the prior 12-month period.  Eight is also the percentage of total trade book sales of several publishers, reports the New York Times, although growth, according to Simba’s Michael Norris, is still slow.

Faber & Faber’s CEO, Stephen Page, inspired by the world launch of the iPad, published a Guardian.com piece that calls upon the industry to get organized and get on board. His points, and some of the comments that piled on afterward, outline plenty of work for those ready to roll up their sleeves.

Book ad agency Verso released the results of a survey of book-buying behavior that indicated, among other things, that e-book readers preferred a variety of platforms and formats—meaning that for “avid” readers, the paper version will not soon depart.

All this industry energy does mean increased opportunity for businesses outside of book publishing that have experience and skills in digital media and entertainment, law and technology.