Amazon delivered todaya beta version of its free Kindle for BlackBerry e-book app, a quick download that provides access to more than 420,000 books. It marks just the latest example of how the publishing industry is facing seminalchanges. Will the end result be the death of quality content?

Amazon has been in the crosshairs of the traditional publishing industry for some time now, with regard to numerous issues. Its standard $9.99-per-title charge for e-books is the same kind of clear and present threat to existing business models in the publishing industry that the music industry faced as low-priced musicbecame available on ubiquitous digital players. The music industry continues to reel from the effects of that revolution, and instead of reaching for workable digital business strategies, aims laterally for questionable solutions such asslapping a performance tax on radio stations.

I got into a discussionon a videocast yesterday with Dan Goodin, one of the best writers over atThe Register, about the equally seismic shifts we’re seeing in book distribution and the publishing industry. He made the point that with the low pricing models for digital books, and more devices for reading them, the ultimate effect may be that the quality of written content suffers.

Continues @ http://gigaom.com

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