Will Amazon Insert Ads into Kindle E-Books?

By Devin Coldewey

Before everyone gets in a huff, let’s consider Amazon’s (AMZN) intentions with these patent applications. Surely they would never allow advertisements to be placed in books which you have purchased legitimately at full price, so let’s put that out of our heads. But what if you could take a few bucks off the cover price at the cost of a few contextual ads relating (if possible) to the book’s content? Personally, I wouldn’t mind — partially because I don’t use a Kindle or intend to any time soon, but more because it’s a no-lose situation. Amazon wouldn’t risk alienating its loyal Kindle base with dirty tricks like this, so it’s safe to assume it’ll be at least somewhat opt-in.

An abundance of free or reduced-price content would widen the appeal of the reader — I imagine many people are put off e-books by the idea that they are not getting their money’s worth. As offensive as the idea of inserting ads into a book is to me (and surely to the average reader), it’s almost certainly part of a value proposition which increases the utility of these expensive little buggers.

The wording of the patent requests also includes the language “in response to a consumer request for content,” which could probably be massaged into referring to downloaded books that have been paid for, but more easily fits streamed or dynamically generated stuff like news or Google Books content. There’s also talk of including the ad in printed versions of said content, which bothers me a bit more than the other part. At any rate, I’m convinced that advertisements are unlikely to appear in the kinds of books and publications you’re paying full price for right now, so if this is ever implemented, you’ll probably (hopefully) be able to read your Vanity Fair unmolested.

[via Slashdot and TechGeist]

Original post

Comments

[xtopherm:]

You forgot another very obvious possibility: what if the goal was not to subsidize the books, but rather to subsidize the hardware. What if you could pay $400 for a regular kindle with regular books or $99 for an ad-subsidized Kindle with cheaper ad-subsidized books??

Jul 05 10:18 PM

[Spook:]

Don't think the ad-subsidized ebook will catch on, just saw the news an hour ago, Prime View International predict a strong 2Q sales, also predict EBook reader sales to pick up. For those who may not have tracked the news, Prime View International, a Taiwan company acquire E-Ink technologies last month for US$125 million.

This what will happen when a Taiwanese companies start producing a new technologies? it become a commodity product.

I will very much foresee same pattern, Amazon and Google will be the iTunes of eBook, EBook reader will be cheap enough for Amazon or Google to subsidize for a higher eBook sales.

Jul 05 10:48 PM

[adman:]

What is the big deal with advertising in a newspaper within an e-book. We are used to advertising in regular newspapers and magaines and it isnt intrusive. People need to get off of their high horses about advertising- consumers are not willing to subsidize content without advertising in a big way - so advertising is an elegant solution.

Jul 05 11:34 PM

[PeterB:]

Many paperback books have lists of similar or related books (for example by the same author) on the back few pages. Skipping them is trivial (you have finished the book, anyway), but could be useful if you are looking for another such book. An unobtrusive ad in a Kindle book would be not much different

Jul 05 11:57 PM

[User 464029:]

Consider that e-book services such as bookboon.com already
do have contenrelated ads in their books. Their ebooks are fincanced 100% through in-book ads and can therefore be downloaded for free. Isn't that something?

Jul 31 07:47 AM