Random House, the world's largest consumer book publisher, has teamed up with Vocel, best known for its delivery of Princeton Review's Prep for the SAT via cell phones. One result - audiobooks for cell phones.
This partnership gives subscribers mobile phone access to foreign-language self-study programs by Living Language, and video game strategy guides by Prima Games. Vocel is said to be discussing potential mobile content with other book publishers.
TextOnPhone By Portable Reading
Portable Reading offers a book reading service for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The TextOnPhone service is a library of over 20,000 books in 37 languages along with short stories and book excerpts contributed by contemporary authors.
No software installation is necessary because TextOnPhone operates within the mobile browser. Though specific to the iPhone and iPod Touch, TextOnPhone is a boost to the audiobooks-on-cell-phones trend.
Said Ellen Sussman, author of Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave: "Just imagine - people might read a story or novel excerpt on their mobile phone and decide to spend the rest of the evening at home reading a book! What a perfect lure."
TextOnPhone features include the ability to cache content for offline access; discussion boards attached to individual pages and passages; interactive author forums; and tools for aspiring authors to upload their writings for others to read.
Phone Books Have New Meaning
A joint venture between Orb Networks and Audible
, allows subscribers to listen to any audio titles downloaded to a home PC from more than 60,000 hours of audiobooks, audio magazines and newspapers, radio programs, and original shows.
A key advantage here is that customers do not have to transfer their downloaded audio to a mobile device before they leave home.
"This is an exciting time for consumers who want to take full advantage of their mobile devices along with the digital content they own at home," said James Behrens, CEO, Orb Networks.
"There has always been that promise of streaming all your digital home media to a cell phone or PDA and the time has come to deliver on that promise. The possibilities are endless."
