The latest development involves five media companies joining forces on technical standards for the e-readers at the heart of news industry optimism about lowering publication and distribution costs.
The report in Editor & Publisher identifies the ambition of a common digital storefront, with similar screen sizes, applications and operating systems to prevent the HD/BlueRay or Beta/VHS problems of emerging and warring technologies.
Time Inc., News Corp, Conde Nast, Hearst and Meredith are all aboard, but it remains unclear what the journey looks like. They've simply signed on to pursue the approach.