Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

audible posts

Filed under: Audio, Internet, News, Apple

Amazon buys Audible.com

by Brad Linder Jan 31st 2008

audible.com
Amazon has entered into an agreement to buy digital audiobook service Audible.com. The deal is valued at $300 million, and allows Amazon to dramatically expand its digital audio offerings. While Amazon already offers millions of MP3 songs for download, Audible is probably the biggest name in digital audiobooks, and has a library of 80,000 titles available for purchase.

What's particularly interesting is that Amazon appears to be engaged in an arms race with Apple over global domination of the digital media sphere. Amazon beat Apple to the punch and Apple have been duking it out to see who can offer the largest DRM-free music library, and both services now let users buy or rent movies and TV shows online.

iTunes users have long been able to download audiobooks from Audible and play them on their computers or iPods. We seriously doubt Amazon will kill Audible's partnership with Apple. There's just too much money on the table for that. But you never know.

[Thanks Cris Pearson!]

Tags: amazon, audible, audio-books, audiobooks, itunes

Filed under: Audio, Internet

eMusic to offer DRM-free audiobooks

by Brad Linder Sep 17th 2007

eMusic audiobooksLike downloading audiobooks, but don't like being told how to listen to them? Up until now, the biggest names in downloadable audiobooks have been Audible and iTunes. Now online music site eMusic has announced it will get into the game.

Unlike books purchased from Audible/iTunes, anything you buy from eMusic will be DRM-free. Want to listen to it on any computer or portable media player? No problem. All you need is a player that can handle MP3s. And a lot more media players can handle MP3 than AAC files with DRM.

And why should you care if you have an iPod? Because there are still limitations on how you can use Audible/iTunes audiobooks. Want to burn your book to several CDs so you can listen at home and in the car? No deal. You can only burn an iTunes audioboook to CD once.

eMusic also hopes to undercut Audible and iTunes on price. The New York Times reports that one launch title will be The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. On iTunes, the audiobook will cost you $18.95. eMusic will sell it for $9.99. On the other hand, Audible and iTunes have about 15,000 titles to choose from, while eMusic will have only about 1,000 when the service goes live.

Tags: audible, audiobooks, books, emusic, itunes

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Most Commented On (7 days)

Recent Comments

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio