As noted by CNET, though, this is way too little at a time in which software developers are inundated with platforms begging for appplications to make them stand out from the crowd. To boot, premium applications will have to pay a healthy chunk of their revenues to Amazon, presumably to cover the cost of downloads, which is bundled into the Amazon service from a consumer perspective. Kindle readers on iPhones and other platforms may help to buoy Amazon's overall e-book strategy, but it is highly doubtful that the Kindle itself has much of a lifespan as a multi-functional content delivery platform. In turn, this puts pressure on Amazon's overall sales picture, as a generation attuned to iTunes downloads may be more willing to add books to that list of items to cram into their portable devices than to shift to downloads on the Kindle platform that's centered around yesterday's content formats.

The vision of the Kindle was myopic from day one, too bent on luring timid publishers into the e-book era before others became premium e-book download kings. While this did leverage Amazon into an early advantageous position for e-books, its focus on a pioneering device locked it in to formats and concepts that reflected the fears and limitations of the book publishing industry more than it did the realities of a Web-enabled world of a multitude of content formats, publishers and delivery channels. Its onerous cut of Kindle e-book revenues also gave publishers a good reason to work with other platform providers to get a better piece of the action. The net result is that Amazon is in strong danger of becoming a book distribution channel that fails to lock in a new generation of book readers on emerging mobile platforms.

With Apple setting itself up as a primary download competitor, the question becomes whether Amazon wants to continue to try to be the Microsoft of e-books via its proprietary approach or to become the Google of e-books in response to this challenge. In other words, is Amazon willing to admit that it made a huge mistake in not aligning itself more with a cross-platform, open standards approach in preparation for the inevitable platform battles that required stronger technology partners? There may not be a black-and-white answer to this question, but clearly Amazon needs to focus more on channel strategies and content publisher relations than on multi-function platform development. This is especially important in light of media companies that manage multi-channel products - "Avatar" lives as a movie, as a game, and, inevitably, as videos, books and so on. Amazon should be focusing more on the question of how to be a download king for content of all kinds rather than a gizmo king.

The logical leading partner in this would seem to be Google, with its emerging Android and Chrome OS platforms, options that weren't on the table in any serious way a couple of years ago but which are now coming to market aggressively. Microsoft will certainly be in the mix also, but it's playing catch-up in mobile platforms at a time in which Google is preparing to soar past many established vendors with its cross-platform Android operating system. In February the Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader will be the first model delivered to consumers based on Google's Android operating system, opening the door to thousands of applications that could be integrated with e-books easily on that device, as well as on other Android-based devices. While there are notable flaws in the Barnes & Noble strategy - too few books, no reader yet for other mobile devices - its use of the ePub standard for its downloads and an incorporated lending model is closer to what will help book publishers to integrate with many other kinds of content and platforms quickly and profitably.

Book publishers have, predictably, dug themselves into an early hole in the race for digital markets by rejecting standards that would make cross-platform use of e-books a simple thing for consumers. One of the great things about books traditionally is that they didn't require a special technology to use them. Why would publishers go out of their way to balkanize their market into dozens of different proprietary formats that can only discourage people from picking up books in general? While it will take some time to undo this damage, there is still time for book publishers to avoid the mistakes of the music and video industries and decide on formats that will encourage cross-platform use of e-books as simply and inexpensively as possible and which encourage developers to create functionality around e-books that enhances their value and their integration into Web-based content, collaboration and community services.

While there may be some sucking up of pride in Amazon's C-suite to make these things happen, they are absolutely necessary if Amazon is to extend its early ecommerce successes based on Web standards into mobile markets. Perhaps Amazon forgets that if it weren't for Web standards, the world would not have discovered its leading ecommerce services in the first place. Amazon needs to re-discover its appreciation of the power of Web-oriented industry standards for e-books and re-establish itself as a company that can carve out the broadest opportunities for content ecommerce via the widest array of content platforms. While this may not always sound like music to the ears of its publishing partners, it's the only way in which it will be able to offer a sound alternative to media companies that are locking themselves into proprietary platforms that will inevitably place Amazon in an awkward relationship with them. I don't put much hope on this happening in the short term - some changes at the top in Amazon may have to occur for this to happen - but it's likely their best road to success in the years ahead.

The Skiff initiative from Hearst is far more than a tablet gizmo, encompassing distribution on a number of platforms including smart/super phones, PCs and other devices on which their clients would presumably want to view content laid out in traditional print format - and pay presumably premium print prices for it. The reader itself has a display almost as large as a typical notebook PC, with wafer-thin construction, eInk-like resolution and touch-screen activation. The Que reader is a similarly "thin is in" device, but the content that it can manage is oriented towards both traditional media and enterprise document management. The idea behind both devices is that you can have the convenience of digital storage and display without the hassle of dealing with Web-oriented content formats.

The real rationale behind these initiatives, of course, is more of a regressive approach to content than a progressive approach. The Skiff screams at its audience, "Print formats are still relevant, darn it!" while the Que burbles out, "Web sites for collaboration? Nevah hoid of it." And in common to these devices both traditional publisher and enterprise document management business models hope to thrive by locking in support for bright and shiny new high-tech toys that amuse people enough to let them forget that they are paying not just for a pricey device but for outmoded ways of looking at content aggregation, integration and contextualization. The Web site for Skiff tells people first that it's a "publisher-friendly" device, meaning that publishers can obtain revenues from lock-in via proprietary formats while changing as little of its outlook on its revenue streams as possible.

I am hard-pressed to think of an army of executives who have to already juggle laptop PCs, smartphones and other gizmos who will find their world to be truly simplified by this emerging world of proprietary devices. There's little doubt that the tablet format for devices will begin to pick up steam this year, especially those that are touch-enabled devices that help to eliminate the need for physical keyboards. But much of the tablet buzz is smoke and mirrors for journalists, hiding the broader reality that most major publishers are faced with a world in which their revenue streams are drying up and unlikely to be propped up for very long by proprietary tablet plays. None of these devices seem to address the primary issue facing their operations: namely that the Web as a whole is far more interesting and engaging to its readers than any given publication.

Publishers do need to focus on quality editorial operations, to be sure, to ensure that they have a product that's worth the premium prices that they hope to extract on their tablet devices. But their real competition is not bloggers or online aggregators, but other Web formats. The ease with which video can be displayed both on PC and mobile devices and the rapidly accelerating integration of voice services into Web services is creating an environment in which an enormous amount of information is being created and shared with people around the world well before it ever gets into words. The prevalence of status posting services such as Facebook and Twitter make people aware of the first and best news coverage of an event to the point that follow-up reports are as redundant to the general public as they are to stock traders equipped with real-time news feeds.

Yes, the experience of print is engaging, and, often, seductive. But in an online world built around relationships, context and collaboration, investing heavily on keeping up the appearance of the seductiveness and power of print seems to make about as much sense as an 80 year-old investing in a fifteenth round of cosmetic surgery. Premium publishing models are important, but investing in outdated business models to drive premium revenues again and again is a non-starter. It will help to stem the tide of the Web no more than 3-D television or other diverting forms of repackaging. The movie "Avatar" succeeded not because of 3-D images but because it appealed to generations young and old who are moving into new forms of relationships with information and experiences via the Web, enveloped in them constantly to the point that publishing is becoming part of who they are, as I infer in Chapter 10 of Content Nation.

With this in mind, I think that the most important "tablets" are already in many people's pockets - Web-enabled smart/super phones that provide touch-activated access to content and applications that free people from heavy and expensive PCs. Most of these devices cost a fraction of the price of the premium tablet units being promoted for sale. When touch-sensitive tablet devices based on Google's open-source Chrome OS debut later this year, the need for price-sensitive access to full-display content will be underscored yet again. The publishing industry will never grow, much less survive, if it insists on locking its hopes into the most expensive delivery mechanisms available when cost-effective alternatives abound.

What publishers should be focusing on is enabling their content for cross-platform distribution as effectively as possible, demanding premium price points where warranted based on the contextual value of their communities, features and services, not on the fleeting value of a handful of specific devices. If we are headed towards a world in which people will be able to wave an RFID-enabled phone at an item to purchase it, or similarly to execute a business agreement, then publishers need to jump off yesteryear's bandwagon and tool content to be valuable where organizations generating products and services will be thrusting their marketing investments. Gimmicky tablets will prevent this no more than Cinerama-produced films stemmed the rise of television in the 1950s and 1960s. So congratulations to the tablet producers for sucking money out of publishers who should be investing elsewhere. Hopefully next year's CES will see some more sensible solutions to content display and distribution that will be true boosts to publishers.