Amazon isn’t just slowly moving into the digital media world, it’s smashing its way in, like a large, book-selling rhinocerous. The company announced that it had acquired Audible for $300 million this Thursday, a move that meant very little to anyone who doesn’t know what Audible is.
What, then, is it? Audible is the leading provider of audio books in digital form — with a library of 80,000 titles, Amazon has officially entered the audio book market. Take that… all you audio book market competitors.
Amazon intends to start selling Audible audio books through its Mp3 download store as well as its regular book section. They will also be for sale directly to Amazon’s nifty electronic book reader, Kindle, which has a headphone jack and can play MP3s. Plus, you get the added irony points of listening to an audio book on something called an electronic book reader.
It should be noted that Audible has a pre-existing relationship with Apple, allowing them to sell books through the iTunes Store — how the deal will affect the Apple relationship has yet to be discovered.
The buy is a good one for Amazon, who will be adding roughly $90 million in annual sales to its revenues. Bravo, Amazon, bravo.
