amazon buys audible!

Post by **hugh** » January 31st, 2008, 11:24 am

news from the commercial side of audiobooks:
http://mashable.com/2008/01/31/amazon-dishes-out-300-million-for-audible/

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » January 31st, 2008, 11:29 am

Post by **hugh** » January 31st, 2008, 11:31 am

quick calculation:
-the article indicates that audible's catalog is roughly 90,000 works.
-@$300M for the kit, that's about 3k/title
-so that makes librivox's donation to the universe roughly worth (in grubby capitalist terms: 1200*3000 = $3.6 million.

let's discount by 50% for our quirks, and, which puts us at $1.8 million, which sounds very low to me.

not that we're for sale, but ... kinda interesting.

UPDATE:
I'm not sure if it needs to be said, but just to be clear, this was the sort of idle wondering one would do when hearing, say, news that Britannica would be sold to TimeWarner for $X, and then doing the quick calculation of what that would mean wikipedia is "worth." I doubt if wikipedia could be sold, and I know LibriVox couldn't. There is nothing to sell except a domain name.

So fear not, our principles won't change:

LibriVox Objective
To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.

Our Fundamental Principles
* Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
* Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain
* Librivox is powered by volunteers
* Librivox maintains a loose and open structure
* Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » January 31st, 2008, 11:37 am

More at amazon here:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1102509&highlight=

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » January 31st, 2008, 11:49 am

Audible and its wholly owned subsidiary, Audible.co.uk, have almost 200,000 hours of audio programs.

Compare that to LibriVox at 5379.5 completed hours. That is roughly 37 times the audio.

Post by **hugh** » January 31st, 2008, 12:30 pm

so that makes us "worth" 8.1 million, roughly.

CarlManchester · Post by **CarlManchester** » January 31st, 2008, 2:08 pm

Amazon will be paying for the brandname, the assets of the company, the subcriber list and various other things (eg the godawful Audible format - hope it's on their list to scrap that). Far from all of Audible's content is exclusive, so the value of their books is probably much much lower than the purchase price.

On the other hand, of course, our content is, in at least three senses, priceless...

ductapeguy · Post by **ductapeguy** » January 31st, 2008, 3:02 pm

Robert Scott wrote:Kind of odd .... attempting to put a $ value on free stuff ?

I'd say the value is not measurable in monitary units .....

It does feel quite odd to see a $ value attached to what many of us feel is our gift to the world. But I'm sure that many people and businesses and maybe even Amazon do evaluate the vast collection of volunteer talent and finished audiobooks assembled by Librivox in terms of $$$. That's what they do.

Post by **hugh** » January 31st, 2008, 3:05 pm

Kind of odd .... attempting to put a $ value on free stuff ?

I'd say the value is not measurable in monitary units .....

i couldn't agree more.

puffin1 · Post by **puffin1** » January 31st, 2008, 3:06 pm

attempting to put a $ value on free stuff ?

Happens all the time in the world of non-profits when there are grant applications to be made and reported upon, etc. Just a measure of the "market" value that in-kind labor donations can be counted as an often required "share" of the project "costs" when a foundation gives money. That's all sort of archane, but a few of us have had to rough out such figures in Real Life situations. No sin of thinking, in my view.

puffin1 · Post by **puffin1** » January 31st, 2008, 3:41 pm

No, I understand. Please don't get me wrong. I just recognize the impulse - I'm not saying we should monetize the gift to the world that is LibriVox.

I get, you get it, hugh obviously gets it. We all get it. Yay!

puffin1 · Post by **puffin1** » January 31st, 2008, 3:54 pm

Of course I'm correct, Robert! You should know that by now.