Amazon.com to Buy 5% of Audible

Audible (http://www.audible.com) must be doing something right with their spoken-word site. Jeff Bezos certainly thinks so. Amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com) announced today that it will purchase 5% of Audible and has also entered into a multi-million dollar agreement with Audible.

"We're always looking for new ways to deliver more for our customers," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "We've chosen Audible to be our exclusive provider because they have established the new standard in the delivery of spoken-word audio via the Web, and they share our core value of customer satisfaction."

Audible.com has more than 20,000 hours of digital audio content including content from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Industry Standard, Forbes and Harvard Business Review.

It also offers a collection of audiobook by authors such as Stephen King, John Grisham, Frank McCourt, Jon Krakauer, Scott Adams, Mary Higgins Clark, James Redfield, James Patterson, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Austen.

Content from Audible can be listened over the computer via streaming or downloading, plus they can be transferred to "Audible-Ready" portable devices for listening on-the-go.

"Amazon.com provides the ideal platform for our audio service," said Donald Katz, founder and chairman of Audible, Inc. "Our business synergy with Amazon.com's book and consumer electronics stores and their standards for customer excellence will strengthen our leadership position in the online digital spoken-word category."