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Audible Inc. is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming on the Internet. Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. Through its production arm, Audible Studios, Audible has also become the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. On January 31, 2008 Amazon.com announced it would buy Audible for about 300 million USD.〔(Amazon to buy Audible for $300 million ), Reuters〕 The deal closed in March 2008 and Audible became a subsidiary of Amazon. The company is based in Newark, New Jersey's 1 Washington Park high rise office building. Audible is the United States' largest audio book producer and retailer. ==History== January 1998: Audible introduced the first production-volume digital audio player almost four years before the introduction of the iPod.〔, Press Release from Audible Inc., archived by archive.org 01/18/1998〕 It only supported playback of digital audio in Audible's proprietary, low-bitrate .aa format that could be downloaded from Audible.com. Audible holds a number of patents in this area. October 24, 1999: Audible's then CEO, Andrew J. Huffman, died of an apparent heart attack. 2000: Audible licensed the ACELP codec for its level 3 quality downloads.〔 Recognition of ACELP.net by the Leading Spoken Audio Service on the Web〕 2003: Audible made an exclusive deal with Apple to provide their catalog of books on the iTunes Music Store. Books purchased on iTunes have a .m4b extension (a variation on MP4) and contain AAC audio covered by Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management. May 9, 2005: Audible's founder, Don Katz, gave a talk 〔(Don Katz explains Audible.com's history ), May 9, 2005 (Direct link to MP3: ())〕 that is recorded on IT Conversations about the early history of Audible. February/March 2003: ''AudioFile'' magazine published a brief profile of Don Katz.〔(Don Katz Profile ), AudioFile magazine, February/March 2003〕 November 12, 2005: Katz gave a keynote address〔(The Podcast and Portable Media Expo Saturday Sessions ), November 12, 2005 (Direct link to MP3: ())〕 at the Podcast Expo. 2005: Audible launched Audible Air, software that makes it possible to download (copy-controlled) audio books over the air - wirelessly and directly to devices such as a smartphone or PDA. This eliminates the need to download copy-controlled audio books first to a computer and then transfer it to Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Mobile devices. Audible Air content updates automatically, chapters download as required and delete themselves after they have been listened to.〔(A Marriage of Bookshelf and Phone ), ''New York Times'', David Pogue, October 13, 2005〕 March 2006: Katz was featured in ''Business 2.0''.〔(Audible Cranks It Up ), Business 2.0, Paul Keegan, February 21, 2006〕 April 2008: Audible began producing exclusive science fiction and fantasy audiobooks under its "Audible Frontiers" imprint. At launch 25 titles were released. May 2011: Audible launched Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), an online rights marketplace and production platform that connects narrators, producers and rights holders in order to create new audiobooks.〔Paul Guliani, (Amazon's Audible.com sees ten-fold increase in audiobook production ), ''NY Daily News'', January 31, 2013〕〔Max Humphreys, (Audible's Audiobook Creation Exchange Reports Big Growth In 2012 ), NextAdvisor, February 4, 2013〕〔Staff writer, (Keeping Up With the New Demand for Audiobooks ), ''Publishing Trends'', August 1, 2011〕 The platform has been so successful that in 2012, Audible reported it had received more titles from ACX than from its top three audio providers combined.〔 March 2012: Audible launched the A-List Collection, a series showcasing Hollywood stars including Claire Danes, Colin Firth, Anne Hathaway, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Keaton, Nicole Kidman, and Kate Winslet performing great works of literature. Firth's performance of Graham Greene's ''The End of the Affair'' was named Audiobook of the Year at the Audie Awards in 2013. Audible's efforts to make audiobook narration a mainstream art form extends to the narration workshops it offers at acting schools including Juilliard and Tisch School of the Arts; in 2013, the Audible's CEO speculated that the company was the largest single employer of actors in the New York area.〔()〕 September 2012: Audible launched Whispersync for Voice,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url=http://audible.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4146/~/whispersync-for-voice-%26-immersion-reading )〕 an innovation that enables readers to switch seamlessly between reading a Kindle book and listening to the corresponding audiobook without losing their place. June 2015: audiblebooks from Audible.com is made available on Amazon Echo, a voice command device from Amazon.com with functions including question answering, playing music and controlling smart devices. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Audible.com」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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