We’ve known this has been coming for a long time. And now it’s here. The New York Times has implemented it’s paywall in an attempt to increase revenue.

NYT offers three subscription levels. For $15 you get unlimited access to everything on the NYT website. For $20, you get unlimited access to the website plus access to their tablet app. Finally, for $35, you get all the above plus access to their smartphone app. Note that all plans are billed in increments of 4 weeks.

Why they can’t just have the two plans: The basic $15 and the $35 plans. It seems silly to pay $20 for website access and tablet access only.

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A lot of content providers have already weighed in on Apple’s new subscription rules, requiring that they allow for in-app content purchases

Apple issued a press release today announcing that they are introducing subscription services to content publishers in the App Store. Such a service has been rumored for a while, especially in the wake of News Corp’s ‘The Daily’ iPad-only newspaper.

Like all apps sold through Apple’s App Store, the company will take a 30% cut of all subscriptions sold within the app ‘ecosystem’. Here’s part of Apple’s press release:

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I received an unusual email this morning from Barnes & Noble. They are trying to lure me to their affiliate program from Amazon’s. Last month I received a notice from Amazon that they might terminate my affiliate relationship with them.

The reason? The state I live in, Illinois, wants to start taxing internet purchases for companies that have a physical presence in the state. The law (HB 3659) is written so that affiliates count as a ‘physical presence’ in the state.

The state legislature has already passed the law and needs to be signed by Gov. Quinn, who just signed a large tax increase into law.

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Borders just can’t get a break. The latest misfortune to hit the bookseller came last Thursday, when the New York Stock Exchange threatened to delist Borders if they can’t get their stock price above $1 per share.

But don’t start feeling bad for Borders quite yet. A long series of missteps, poor management and lagging behind the rest of the industry is the cause of their current troubles. In fact, the roots of Borders’ problems can be traced as far back as the 1990s.

An article on Crain’s Detroit Business website chronicles the bad decisions Borders has made throughout the years. One of their earliest mistakes, according to the article, was concentrating on mall ’boutique’ stores when Barnes & Noble was moving to standalone superstores.

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Ebook prices are still very fluid. There’s no industry standard, or even a consensus, on how much an ebook should cost. Only one thing is for sure, ebook consumers like prices low. Author Ken Follett and his publisher are learning that the hard way. His publisher raised the price of a Follett book from $7.99 to $9.99. The result? Sales of the ebook fell by 48%.

Hopefully this will be a wake-up call to other publishers and authors that higher ebook prices will only hurt sales. This also shows that the agency model, when publishers are allowed to set their own prices, doesn’t work. A recent post on J.A. Konrath’s blog says:

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In a 4th quarter earnings press release published today by the largest online retailer, Amazon.com, the company reports that they have sold “millions” of their 3rd generation Kindles in the last fiscal quarter. CEO Jeff Bezos released this statement:

“Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales.”

Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about their Kindle sales numbers. Estimates are all over the place, but all appear to be above the 5 million mark for 2010.

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Publishers, treading cautiously, have only recently began letting consumers share ebooks. The Kindle and Nook allow for sharing, but with a lot of restrictions: Ebooks can only be lent out once, for 2 weeks and not all ebooks are available for lending.

Ebook fans are taking matters into their own hands. A few websites have popped up allowing users to swap ebooks with each other. According to Publishers Weekly, BookSwim launched a site called ebooktoss.com:

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I received a letter from Amazon informing me that I might be at risk of having my affiliate account terminated. Not because of any nefarious practices on my part, rather, because of upcoming legislation in Illinois that would slap a tax on online sales in the state.

Similar laws have been passed in Colorado, Rhode Island, North Carolina and New York (pending outcome of a lawsuit). So Illinois isn’t the first state to pull this stunt, and sadly, it won’t be the last.

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Wikileaks has been making major waves in several spheres of life: Online, world governments, law enforcement, activists and everyday citizens.

The controversy centers around the online whistleblower’s website that recently published thousands of diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world. Before that, Wikileaks published the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs – each containing classified government and military documents.

I’m a staunch supporter of an open and free press that can operate without threats/retribution from any government. And with the internet, it is even more important for the press to be able to operate freely. Therefore, I support Wikileaks and their efforts.

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