The Industry Standard - Amazon's purchase of Audible triples Audible sales by end of Q3 YOY - Comments

Like I said I'm still

Marc Williams — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:21:45 -0700

Like I said I'm still figuring out what is best to post here at The Standard and I agree if the numbers won't be broken out then it's moot.
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Fascinating back story,

Eric Hill812251 — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:20:50 -0700

Fascinating back story, Marc. I'm serious. I love this prediction, I just don't know how we would judge it if we can't find any sales figures. This could make for an interesting news story in some way, however.

I'm just learning the in's

Marc Williams — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:36:52 -0700

I'm just learning the in's and out's of the standard so do with this as you will. I worked as a consultant at Audible for 2 1/2 years when they were desisted at $0.30 with a significant turn-around hitting a high of $30. I grew to know their exec team and especially their CEO very well and believe they would not have entered into this agreement without a significant sales, marketing & promotional campaign commitment from Amazon. Also consider the amount of promotion Amazon is putting behind their Kindle project, they definitely want to start shipping no cost bytes versus margin killer (S&H) books. I have heard it form a credible source that i will not reveal that Kindle is not meeting expectations. Consumers are much more comfortable with spoken word; whether you just don't have the time to read everything, need delayed listening, commute or are am audio listener converting to digital. Look for considerable line listing and search marketing for spoken word/audio books, etc... as well iPod promotional cross selling.

BTW I hold no position in Audible/Amazon nor would I ever use this forum or any other to comment on a stock I did own.

Agreed. Sorry Marc, but

Eric Hill812251 — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:48:33 -0700

Agreed. Sorry Marc, but unless you can find a credible source for this that we can use in the future, this fantastic suggestion is probably going to die a slow and miserable death. :(

I haven't spent any time

Bradley Baker — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:43:01 -0700

I haven't spent any time researching it.

As mentioned in my first comment, I wouldn't be surprised for this to be a difficult-to-judge prediction. If it IS possible then I think it's potentially interesting. Overall I think the risk of an unjudgeable prediction is great enough that we're better off just finding other things to predict about. There doesn't seem to be a significant lack of candidate propositions.

Hey Bradley, I just found

Eric Hill812251 — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:19:00 -0700

Hey Bradley, I just found this on the Audible site (which used to list their stock symbol as ADBL), "Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment, on the Internet."

So, they aren't even listed separately anymore. I don't think this will be very easy to judge for us. Love the prediction, but unless Amazon releases a PR boasting very specific Audible revenues, I think this is going to sink as a Suggestion.

Unless you can think of anything else here.

That just means that we

Bradley Baker — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:03:10 -0700

That just means that we don't have to worry about last-minute sniping or having to off-set the prediction close date to avoid such. :)

I found this site. I think

Eric Hill812251 — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:56:56 -0700

I found this site. I think we can use this to check the Q3 YOY income (incidentally, the tripling of the income seems like a done deal if Q4 07 was any indication of their improvements). That being said - be forewarned. The Q3 results last year weren't released until November 1, 2007. So, there will be a month of "nothingness", or waiting, after the prediction closes.

What would be a good source

Eric Hill812251 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:16:24 -0700

What would be a good source to verify your prediction, Marc?

A couple of comments: Will

Bradley Baker — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:36:11 -0700

A couple of comments:

Will AMZN split out Audible's revenue? It's now a fully-owned subsidiary, so this might be unobtainable information.

I would edit the final sentence. "The success of this prediction is dependent..." rather than "This prediction is dependent..."

Assuming that revenue numbers will be available after Q3 I think this is an interesting prediction.

Amazon's purchase of Audible triples Audible sales by end of Q3 YOY

Marc Williams — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:33:25 -0700

Due to the recent purchase of Audible by Amazon having nearly finalized , the Amazon marketing juggernaut will soon begin to properly promote Audible's internet delivered audio book content.

This is a prediction that the integration of Audible into the Amazon store and products will help drive Audible's 2008 Q3 YOY revenue by 3 fold.

The success of this prediction is dependent on Amazon taking a very active merchandising role in promoting Audible's downloadable content (and, we think removing Audible content from iTunes would be a disaster for all involved, but that is not part of this prediction).

If due to the acquisition of Audible the income revenues are no longer separated out from Amazon's revenues (which seems doubtful, we believe Audible will continue as a separate brand/daughter company), this prediction will be judged at S$0.

(Ed. Note: The Standard has modified this prediction based on community feedback.)