From CBS MarketWatch. Sorry, but I saw it on AOL so there is no link.
--Mike Buckley
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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - Time Warner Trade Publishing will take a significant foray into online publishing with a Web portal called iPublish.com, the company said Tuesday.
The site, set to launch in the first quarter of 2001, will contain original e-books by both new and best-selling authors such as Walter Mosley, David Baldacci and others, as well as traditional books that have been converted to the digital format.
"We believe that an established publishing house can make a bold leap and succeed in the wide-open space of the Internet," said Laurence Kirshbaum, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner Trade Publishing.
AOL, which agreed to buy Time Warner for about $160 billion in January, will use some of its brands to distribute iPublish.com products. The portal has also forged promotional agreements with Microsoft (MSFT: news, chart) and Gemstar (GMST: news, chart), among other companies.
The site will consist of three channels. The first channel, iRead, will feature previously published works and serve as a launch pad for distribution to a growing number of online outlets.
The second main area, iWrite, the publishing engine of iPublish.com, will allow readers to submit new works. Time Warner editors and iPublish members will review submissions and choose new works to be published in both the digital and print formats.
The third channel, iLearn, will be a forum for Time Warner's best-selling authors and in-house experts to share their knowledge with the site's users.
Shares of AOL (AOL: news, chart) were unchanged at 52 in late-morning trading on Wall Street, while Time Warner (TWX: news, chart) stock rose 1/8 to 76 1/4. |
