By UNA MULLALLY
SMALL PRINT: BOOKSHOPS MAY HAVE suffered due to the online migration of book sales, but the book-publishing industry still manages to make good money from its content, unlike the film and music industries. The proliferation of electronic readers has seen consumers change the way they read, but most people continue to pay for books.
Now, though, a Norwegian website is trying out the Spotify model (whereby subscribers can stream music) for audiobooks. Ordflyt.no, still in beta, is a collaborative project between a Norwegian publishing house and Aspiro, a Swedish company that works mainly with television and music streaming services. The service, which is focusing on Norwegian books for the time being, offers 150 audiobooks for free at the moment, and further titles are available for purchase.
Ordflyt (the site might want to come up with a catchier name if the service ends up going international) also plans to launch iPhone and Android apps in the next few months.
