In an email to publishing partners Google stated:

“With Google Play, users can buy and experience books, music, movies and Android apps, available across their devices. Google Play gives our partners and the ecosystem an integrated entertainment hub for Android and Google users. As part of this launch, Google eBooks and Android Market will become part of Google Play, and users will now get their ebooks from Google Play.”

From the perspective of eBooks, I think the choice of Google Play is unfortunate, as obviously most people don’t think of playing an eBook. It’s definitely not the right verb for eBooks.

Why not “Google Read”?

Apparently, purchasing textual content isn’t a big enough market to have it’s own brand. That seems terribly ironic coming from the company whose mission is to organize the world’s information, and most of that information is in text. And they’ve done pretty well with text so far. Why now push textual content under an umbrella where it clearly doesn’t belong?

Google continues in the email to publishers:
“In addition, customers who go to the web ebookstore will be redirected to the Google Play store. While this doesn’t change the way consumers read Google eBooks, it does provide a more compelling mobile purchase experience.”

Have Google eBooks sales gone so badly that they’re putting it under the rug? Let’s hope not. Let’s hope that Google will actually create a user experience as good as amazon and be able to predict your preferred mode of entertainment with a good recommendation engine and collaborative filtering.

But even if they do an excellent job with merchandising, I’m afraid that when consumers think of Google, they’ll think of playing and Amazon for reading.

The tablet will reportedly run Android 4.0 with a 2 GHz dual-core Exynos 5250 CPU, and it’s likely to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in February 2012. This latest rumor goes hand in hand with rumors of Apple’s next generation iPad. Its A6 CPU will reportedly be very similar to the one in Samsung’s upcoming tablet.

As far as display resolution goes, the iPad 3 is rumored to have a 2048 x 1536 display, which would make Samsung’s rumored tablet superior in terms of pixel density (depending on the size of the iPad’s display).

For comparison, the pixel density in iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S Retina display is 326 pixels per inch on a 3.5 inch screen. It’s been matched by a few competitors – namely the HTC Rezound and the LG Optimus LTE – but it happened over a year after iPhone 4 first hit the market. If the rumors are true, unlike the iPhone 4 at its launch, Apple’s next-gen iPad might not have the distinction of having the most advanced display on the market.

Strong demand for tablets will drive the growth, UK-based Juniper Research said in a report published Thursday. Nearly 30% of all ebooks in 2016 will be downloaded to tablets.

Lately, Amazon — which dominates the ebook market in the U.S. — has been setting its sites on the growing global market, rolling out dedicated ereaders and stores for French, Spanish and Italian readers.

This is a tremendous stat for e-publishers and authors. As is this:

By 2016, mobile commerce is expected to increase to $31 billion in the U.S. – a tremendous jump from only $3 billion in 2010.

Since using a tablet from the comfort of your own sofa is preferred to long lines at stores, tablet owners are willing to spend more time and money shopping online.

Check out the infographic below courtesy of Vertic to see how tablets are directly affecting ecommerce in the U.S., a trend that is expected to continue for the next five years.

So says a survey commissioned by a publishers’ trade group: It finds that two-thirds of people who read magazines on tablets and e-readers think they’ll be spending more time with digital issues over the next year. Many of them — 46 percent — are consuming more magazines — both in print and digital form — than they did before they got their hands on an iPad.* And 63 percent of them want more digital stuff to read.

Overall, the survey has generally sunny news for the magazine business, though it’s fair to wonder if the Association of Magazine Media would release a survey that had glum news.

The report does offer some guidance for the industry: 89 percent of readers want publishers to adopt a uniform way of navigating magazines, and 69 percent like watching in-app videos that run less than minute. The survey isn’t explicitly about iPad magazine editions — in theory, it covers all tablet magazine apps, as well as magazines consumed on e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook. But the majority of these things are being read on Apple’s device.

According to research conducted by the company, 79% of consumers would rather receive a tablet than a laptop this holiday season.

When consumers were asked whether they would rather receive a tablet computer or a laptop as a holiday gift this year, an overwhelming 79 percent indicated that they would rather receive a tablet. Seventy-two percent of shoppers also indicated that they believe tablet computers will replace e-readers as gifts this year. Conducted from Oct. 18 to 26, 2011, the survey includes responses from 3,574 U.S. online shopping consumers.

When those who indicated a preference for tablets over laptops were asked to select all of the reasons why, portability and light weight appeared to be dominating factors. Eighty-five percent of these shoppers said they preferred tablets because they are easy to carry and transport, 73 percent preferred the tablet’s light weight, 67 percent cited convenience, and another 67 percent enjoyed the touchscreen. Sixty percent preferred the tablet’s smaller size, 56 percent said that they can use the tablet for reading on the go, 49 percent cited speed, 42 percent liked its multimedia features that are similar to a smartphone, and 41 percent cited an exceptional battery life.

iPad is the top-ranked tablet and e-reader

The power of the Apple brand is likely to remain in full force this holiday season. When consumers were asked which tablet they would prefer to receive as a gift this year, an astounding 83 percent said they preferred the Apple iPad or iPad 2. This was followed by only 5 percent who said the Amazon Kindle Fire, 4 percent who said the Samsung Galaxy Tab and 2 percent who said the HP TouchPad(TM).

iPhone favored too

PriceGrabber’s survey data revealed that consumers’ love for Apple extends to smartphones as well. When asked which smartphone brand they would prefer to receive as a gift this holiday season, 72 percent of consumers said Apple’s iPhone. Seven percent said Samsung, 6 percent indicated that they prefer HTC, 5 percent said BlackBerry, and another 5 percent said Motorola. Brands including T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson and Google Nexus ranked lower.

Magazine publishers appear to be particularly bullish about the content consumption device, which they hope will bolster middling digital sales on the iPad and Nook Color. The Kindle Fire’s $199 price tag will help many publishers get the digital editions of their magazines into the hands of their core readers.

Conde Nast appears to be particularly confident about the platform.

The publisher announced that 17 of its magazines, including Glamour, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired, would be available for free on the device for the first three months. Many titles from Hearst, Time Inc. and Meredith will be available on theKindle Fire Newsstand from day one as well.

Barnes & Noble announced Monday that it would lower the price on its signature Nook Touch e-reader from $139 to $99, following in the footsteps of Amazon, which introduced a $79 Kindle Touch e-reader with ads and a $99 e-reader without ads in September. By doing so, the two leaders in the e-reader market have set a new standard that these products must be priced below $100 to be competitive.

And in the next year, that price mark will likely drop even further.

In fact, e-readers could be priced around $60. Crazy? Not so — consider just how quickly the price of these devices has dropped. When Amazon first launched the Kindle in 2007, it originally retailed for $400; now, consumers can buy a Kindle for less than a quarter of that price.

These retailers have long recognized the need to be increasingly aggressive in pricing in order to attract more casual users, but their ability to lower prices was limited by the production costs. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have embraced the option of subsidizing some of the cost of these devices and making more money in the books and accessories sold with it.

So with that in mind, Amazon just bought a startup called Yap. And Yap’s founders have said their technology will more than compete with Siri.

With strong voice recognition, Amazon could push the Kindle as a supremely easy device for accessing your media hands-free. Finding songs, playing and pausing movies, even turning pages in a book (or buying a new one) could all be done via voice. Indeed, given the Kindle’s much-touted video mirroring capability, this could be a back door into making the Kindle a voice-based remote control for your TV.

Would you consider buying a Kindle with Siri-like functionality?

Amazon is offering more than 5,000 titles, including New York Times bestsellers, that Prime members can borrow. The offer, however, requires you own a Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard or Kindle Fire. User cannot borrow books if you use a Kindle app on another mobile device. What you’re getting in effect from Amazon is a free ebook per month, according to Mashable. You can, however, only borrow one book at a time.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is the latest enticement for Prime. Prime members already get “free” shipping and streaming video via Prime Instant Video. Amazon introduced Prime in 2005 and continues to add perks like expanded streaming content from Fox and others.

The move shows how much Amazon values Prime. Since the company reportedly loses money on the actual sale of Kindles, it’s gambling that it will make up the deficit as consumers buy ebooks. Amazon’s penchant for forgoing short-term gains in favor of a long-term strategy was also in evidence in its third-quarter earnings, where net income fell 73% as the company built fulfillment centers and expanded its Kindle offerings to pave the way for future growth.

Does this new feature make you want to buy a Kindle or sign up for Prime?