Books, TV, Movies, Games

The war of words surrounding that competitive assault has been pretty brutal, with Amazon accused of trying to destroy a valuable cultural institution. And now that Amazon's drive to sell books at lower prices appears to be winning a legal fight over the publishers' price-fixing with Apple, blood will probably start boiling even more.

As affordable digital tools make content creation easier than ever, the channels for delivering that content are as well going through a revolution: faster broadband enables large files to be streamed near anywhere; ubiquitous mobile devices can put a high-resolution, connected screen in anyone's hands; software-supercharged distribution channels make it easier to help consumers find and procure content.

Publishers aren't the only ones who should be paying attention as Amazon signs up more content creators. Apple, Google, Facebook, and maybe Microsoft appear to be barreling toward a future of separate walled gardens to distribute content and capture user data, where they control most of the value chain: delivering digital services over the air and straight into the consumer's face via their own mobile device.

Each of the big players is better at some aspects of this chain than others-Apple's devices are the envy of the business world, during its software is pretty subpar. Nevertheless none of them is making a play to own content as aggressively as Amazon.

In Amazon's battle against these content producers, research strategy consultant and writer Venkatesh Rao says, "there aren't four fronts. There is just one front: content."

It's possible that these forays into publishing are more like experiments for Amazon, which has shown a willingness to try completely new businesses that might not pay off or become a major initiative for a long time. Its Amazon Fresh delivery service, to illustrate, could be a "last-mile" shipping competitor with trucking companies, however still only operates in Seattle.

The same possible

That is all the same possible. However remember, this is a company with a track record of turning quirky side pursuits into big businesses-like on-demand cloud computing, a key technological enabler in a world of ubiquitous digital content. And the signs that Amazon is interested in building its own content-publishing businesses are pretty clear.

BOOKSThis is the foundation of Amazon's whole online retailing business, and it's as well been the first place for Amazon to make bold moves into cutting out the middlemen. A fantastic primer on the subject is this Bloomberg Businessweek story about how Amazon drafted publishing veteran Larry Kirshbaum to lead its newly aggressive publishing arm.

Since at that time, Amazon has continued to sign up authors and acquire the rights to valuable back-catalogs, including the James Bond books. Kirshbaum recently said that Amazon is publishing about 40 books a year, and is looking for literary novelists for its roster. The company as well counted a major victory when the Justice Department set out to smash Apple's pricing agreement with the major publishers, an arrangement that before allowed the publishers to take back control of retail prices from bargain-happy Amazon.

The studios might not always feel that way

But the studios might not always feel that way. Screenwriter Sean Hood thinks Amazon has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the Hollywood studio system, once innovation advances enough that streaming content can be delivered to any screen and the studios aren't needed as 20th-century distributors any longer. At that point, Hood writes, "nobody who has the money to fund a movie will need to go to a traditional studio or cable company for distribution."

Of course, the video game business has a lot more technically adept and innovative players than other traditional content publishing and distribution industries. Startups and established studios are constantly experimenting with new platforms, new business models, and new ways of delivering content. Take Seattle's PopCap Games, Big Fish Games, Zipline Games, and Z2Live, to name just a few.

We have not but seen a real public face put on Amazon's game publishing business, and some industry insiders are a little dubious of the company's ultimate goal-is it as a matter of fact to make games, or more to develop a better gaming platform via some demonstration titles?

Today, Amazon after all lists an opening for a creative executive "to help develop half-hour children's series for online and traditional distribution," based in Studio City, CA. The listing calls for experience in TV production, animation, and online video.

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