Hearst’s move is a quite logical step in the company’s efforts to find a formula that can make it stay competitive in an era of the content-free internet. The company said it will launch the electronic reader later this year, according to a report from Fortune Magazine. 

 

So, just like in the smart phone industry, the Kindle and the other few e-book readers will soon realize that their market segment is getting crowded. This is bad news only for Amazon, Sony and the other few e-book makers, but for the electronic readers’ users is nothing but good news. 

 

Unlike the Kindle 2, the e-reader Hearst plans to launch will feature a bigger layout so it can meet advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines. Hearst executives refused to give details about the electronic reader the company wants to make and about the business model they plan to use behind that e-reader. 

 

The company - which publishes Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan Popular Mechanics, Seventeen, and SmartMoney and several newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer – has seen its revenue fall as advertisers are moving more and more of their advertising funds to the Web. In these conditions, the media corporation is left with no alternative but to risk entering the e-reader market in an effort to boost revenue. Although it may not hit the jackpot the first time, experimenting may really help.