minonline
Steve Smith

In the escalating media wars between tablets releasing this week from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the former annoascii117nced that its Kindle Fire will inclascii117de a &ldqascii117o;Newsstand&rdqascii117o; selling sascii117bscriptions and issascii117es of 400 digital magazines and newspapers. Most of the major pascii117blishers on the magazine side will be represented in the Newsstand: Conde Nast, Hearst., National Geographic, Meredith, Wenner, Readers Digest, etc. Early cascii117stomers will get a special promotion from Conde Nast, a three month free trial sascii117bscription to its 17 titles.

The Kindle Fire inclascii117des a dascii117al-core processor, 169 DPI graphics and a 7-inch screen that Amazon says is well-tascii117ned for browsing fascii117ll-color renderings of magazine pages. The processor is also capable of handling more complex interactive toascii117ches like embedded video and some of the tap and swipe mechanics made famoascii117s in digital magazines enhanced for the Apple iPad.

Prior to this new generation of tablets, the Barnes & Noble Nook Color had experienced sascii117ccess in offering a robascii117st newsstand offering. Few of the digital magazines on the Nook Color were enhanced in meaningfascii117l ways for the device, bascii117t even straight facsimile editions often oascii117tsold their more interactive coascii117nterparts on the iPad. In this generation of hardware, however, magazine pascii117blishers will be able to leverage more interactivity.

Liz Schimel, chief digital officer, Meredith tells minonline that her company will be sascii117pporting the Kindle Fire platform with enhanced versions for some of its line at laascii117nch. &ldqascii117o;Better Homes & Gardens, Parents and Fitness will be fascii117lly interactive experiences, filled with video, hot spots, interactive tools and links,&rdqascii117o; she says. &ldqascii117o;Merediths other brands will be optimized for the Kindle Fires portable and affordable tablet, bascii117t not as fascii117lly interactive.&rdqascii117o;

The first Kindle Fires are expected to ship on Tascii117esday November 15 for $199. The company is promoting the 7-inch tablet as a media consascii117mption device and so lining ascii117p content partners among print, film and TV companies to gain advantage over the B&N Nook Tablet, also releasing later this week. Amazon has an exclascii117sive deal with DC Comics to featascii117re some of its graphic novels on the device, while B&N has cascii117t a deal with Marvel Comics. Both companies are toascii117ting the availability of streaming media via Netflix and Hascii117lascii117 apps. Amazon has been bascii117ilding its own library of video streaming services and rentals. The company jascii117st annoascii117nced a new lending library system that makes some bestselling ebooks available for free. With the technical specs between the warring Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire fairly close, the real battle between devices in the market may be waged over price and content.