Kobo is the reinvention of Canadian retailer Indigo Books & Music previously known as 'Shortcovers' and is a partnership between Indigo, Borders US, REDgroup and Cheung Kong subsidiary Instant Fame. As Shortcovers, the service 'has provided ebooks to customers from over 200 countries and fulfilled over one million ereading app downloads' since launching in February 2009, according to a REDgroup statement.
REDgroup managing director Dave Fenlon told WBN the group's priority was to work with Australian and New Zealand publishers ahead of the launch to make local content available through the new service. ‘We've already had conversations with key Australian publishers,' said Fenlon. ‘We want to be in the position where we can provide Australian versions and we hope the excitement that we've heard from publishers comes through in these negotiations.'
Fenlon said the service was not an opportunity to ‘go outside' the Australian market to provide content under the ‘special order' provisions of Australia's territorial copyright laws. Instead, Kobo will use the same platform previously used by Shortcovers to identify a customer's geographical location and comply with territorial copyright.
While he acknowledged that availability of local content was an issue Fenlon emphasised that the response of local publishers had thus far been positive. ‘The current level of excitement doesn't give me any reason to think that we won't get that sorted out,' he said. Likewise, while New Zealand is obviously an open market ‘our preference is to talk to our New Zealand suppliers,' he said.
Fenlon said Kobo's content would be accessible in a range of formats from 'virtually any device' including ereader, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Android and PC, but confirmed that ‘at the time of launch' there would be a Kobo ereader device available also.
The Kobo ebook service will exist on each of REDgroup's retailing sites as a separate section of the site and will make some newspaper content available as well as books.
‘The majority of consumers will want the ability to buy newspapers online--where the news will be,' explained Fenlon. ‘We'll listen to what they want, whether that's free or paid, time will tell.' However, Fenlon said the ‘most fundamental' aspect was books. ‘Ultimately our aim is to get as many books on there as we possibly can,' he said.
The Kobo announcement in December came amid continuing speculation that REDgroup's private equity owner PEP is considering an initial public offering on the company in the first half of this year.
