This summer more than 100 volunteers took to France's crowded trains, cafs, and beaches with a serious assignment: to lug around and read enormous stacks of popular newspapers, magazines, and books. But the job wasn't as cumbersome as it sounds, because all the publications were compressed into a digital gizmo, called Read & Go, that is no larger than a hardback novel.
The trial of the prototype will wrap up this month, and by 2009, France Telecom aims to start distributing the Read & Go in conjunction with a subscription-based news service of the same name. For a monthly charge similar to a mobile service plan, customers will receive an over-the-air stream of aggregated content from a wide assortment of information sources. Alongside the articles will be ads that help defray the cost of the service.
It's the latest development in the emerging product category known as "e-readers." For many years, overhyped digital books enjoyed scant success. But more recent entrants, including the popular Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, are starting to catch on. Now, through the marriage of devices and service plans, e-readers could become an important distribution channel not just for static books but also for more frequently updated newspapers and other print media.
Sharing the Subscription Fees
That's a thrilling possibility for publishers slammed simultaneously by declining print ad revenues and rising costs for paper, printing, and postage. Unlike on the Web, where most news organizations have been forced to give away ad-supported content for free, they'll receive a cut of the subscription fees for Read & Go. [France Telecom won't disclose the terms yet, nor what it expects to charge for service or the device.]
The Read & Go device was developed by a Dutch company called iRex, which unveiled its own e-book, the iLiad, in 2007. Compared with earlier...

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