socialmedian: Consolidation in the EBook Market: Amazon Acquires Stanza

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Consolidation in the EBook Market: Amazon Acquires Stanza

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Apr 27, 2009

Summary

Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, a popular eBook reader for the iPhone, just announced that it has been acquired by Amazon. Amazon, of course, also just released Kindle for iPhone, which is now one of the most popular mobile eBook readers. According to Lexcycle, the company does not plan to make any changes to the Stanza app or user experience because of this acquisition, and Lexcycle will continue its relationships with its content partners. Neither Stanza nor Amazon disclosed the price of the acquisition.

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Stanza currently offers about 50,000 titles from partners like the Fictionwise eReader store (which is now owned by Barnes and Noble) and O'Reilly, and another 50,000 free books for sources like Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. While Lexcycle's most well-known application is Stanza for the iPhone and iPod touch, the company also develops desktop readers for Windows and Mac, which Amazon currently doesn't offer.

It is also noteworthy that Stanza has been a proponent of open eBook standards like EPUB, while Amazon has always kept its system relativ