What Jeff Bezos Plans for The Post
“I didn’t know anything about the newspaper business, but I did know something about the Internet … That, combined with the financial runway that I can provide, is the reason why I bought The Post,” said Jeff Bezos in a conversation at a Business Insider conference in NYC earlier this month that was reported in the New York Times.
Under Bezos, said the Times story, “the paper has already taken initial steps to that end. Last month, The Post introduced a free app for Kindles, the immensely popular e-reader products built by Amazon, which will bring free daily editions of the newspaper to Kindle Fire owners for six months; after that, it will cost $1 for the next six months.”
According to the Times piece, Bezos “has also placed much of his faith in Shailesh Prakash, The Post’s head of technology, who has worked closely with Mr. Bezos on how the paper’s app will work with Amazon’s devices. And the paper has made a string of 15 or 16 hires specifically with the Kindle app in mind, Martin Baron, the paper’s editor, has said.
Ultimately, said the Times, “Bezos’ goal is to rework The Post into something that expands beyond the local daily newspaper, into one that reaches across borders.
“The Post has the good fortune of being the newspaper of the capital city of the United States of America,” Bezos said. “That’s a great starting point to being a national and even global publication.”
