That’s spread out among sales from Apple’s App Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and the Zinio digital reader platform. “Now we’re going to get a fourth distribution channel tomorrow,” says Hearst president David Carey, without ever saying the word “Amazon.”

So what does that mean? Because digital numbers aren’t uniformly reported yet, it’s a little hard to figure how that compares to the rest of the industry.

Earlier this summer, for instance, Conde Nast put out a release announcing that it had distributed 242,000 digital copies in the six weeks after it started selling subscriptions via Apple’s App Store. But 136,000 of those came from print customers who got digital copies for free with their subscription.

[UPDATE: Conde offers some updated numbers: It says its monthly digital circulation is now 500,000; 225,000 of those are digital-only subscribers, with the rest getting bundles.]

And in Hearst’s case, the publisher is stressing that all 300,000 of its downloads were tied to a payment. Because unlike its peers, it doesn’t offer print/digital bundles.

Another way to look at it: Hearst sells yearly digital subscriptions for $19.99 a year. Since some of those download numbers come from individual sales, each monthly digital unit represents annual revenue of $15 to $20, according to people familiar with the company’s operations. In other words, Hearst’s digital editions are now on an annual run rate of $4.5 million to $6 million.

And yet another way: Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine, one of Hearst’s most popular titles, sells about 2.5 million copies a month.

So this is still smallish stuff. But it is new stuff, and that’s encouraging for an industry trying to ease into the digital world without cutting off its legacy business.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Amazon’s tablet buyers behave like iPad owners or Nook/Zinio users. While most of the digerati have focused on digital magazines on the iPad (guilty), Hearst has done best so far on the Nook and Zinio, both of which offer what digerati used to dismissively refer to as “glorified PDFs” (guilty again).

Then again, those platforms also generate more sales for Hearst because the publisher sells all of its 19 titles on those platforms. So far it has sold just 3 titles via Apple. What about Amazon?

Carey again declines to say the word “Amazon” out loud. “But for any future e-commerce opportunities, stores that we would go into would get everything,” he says. Do your own math there.

When Amazon unveils its new iPad-like device on Wednesday, it will have the backing of at least three of the big magazine publishers: Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith all have deals to sell digital versions of their titles on the new device, according to industry sources.

The notable standout, for now, is Time Warner’s giant Time Inc., which has yet to come to terms with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A person familiar with negotiations suggests that a deal won’t get done in the next two days, either — “hopefully by the end of the year” was the guidance I got today.

Publishing sources say Amazon’s terms will roughly mirror the ones that Apple has established with most magazines this year: Publishers will keep around 70 percent of all Amazon sales, and the retailer will share some customer data with the publishers. The deals aren’t cookie cutter replicas, however, and in some cases Amazon may take a little more or less than 70 percent, depending on the title and the customer offer.

It’s worth noting that Time Inc., the likely holdout for Wednesday’s launch, has yet to completely embrace Apple’s subscription terms as well. The publisher sells individual titles through Apple’s App Store but has yet to strike a deal to sell subscriptions directly from the platform.

Industry sources say publishers have tailored some of their titles for the seven-inch tablet that Amazon plans to unveil on Wednesday, with the expectation that the company will roll out a bigger version that is closer in size to the iPad next year. Both tablets will use Google’s Android operating system.

The publishers who are on board with Amazon view their decision to link up as a no-brainer: They want more distribution channels for their stuff, not fewer. And they’ve been begging, unsuccessfully, for a credible competitor to the iPad since April 2010.

There’s no guarantee that Amazon will be one either, of course. But if you’re going to try to sell stuff, it doesn’t hurt to sell it through the world’s biggest e-commerce platform.

“You’ve got beauty and design with Apple, which we love,” says a publisher who has an Amazon deal. “But with Amazon you have marketing, and ease of use. We’re very optimistic.”

And Amazon has another compelling reason for publishers to join up: It’s already a huge partner for many of them, as a marketing platform for their ink-and-paper titles. Hearst and Amazon spelled out that relationship in a press release earlier this month, which noted that “Amazon will become Hearst’s single-largest third-party seller of print subscriptions for its magazines via digital channels.”

The publisher isn’t pushing Reddit very far away, though. It is spinning out the company as a standalone operation, but will retain full ownership of it, for now.

Conde’s idea is that if Reddit operates on its own, it will be able to grow faster and attract a new breed of employee, including a new chief executive, a position it recently began trying to fill.

The publisher has also recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to sit on the “new Reddit”’s board of directors, along with Conde president Bob Sauerberg; chief technology officer Joe Simon; and Andrew Siegel, who heads business development for Advance publications, Conde’s parent company. Conde says it will bring in other outside directors besides Ohanian.

“We don’t want Redditors to think that anything has changed from their perspective, other than that the company has the ability to just go do things,” says Ohanian. In the past, Reddit employees have complained that Conde hasn’t given them enough resources to maintain the site, which now attracts some 20 million users who generate 1.5 billion page views per month.

The move comes after Conde talked to several investors about selling off a chunk of the company as part of the spinout; at the time, it had floated the notion of a $200 million valuation. The Conde party line is that they’re still open to the possibility but don’t need to do it.

“We think right now we have no need to take in outside funding,” says Steve Newhouse, who runs digital operations for Advance. “We can set up a structure that has the benefits of outside influence, without giving up equity to an outside firm.”

You can forgive outsiders if they look at what Conde is doing and scratch their heads: The company used to be owned by Conde Nast. And now it’s still owned by Conde Nast. So it’s non-news, right?

Sort of. But even if nothing else happens to Reddit’s corporate structure from here on out, there’s something to be said for operating outside of a corporate parent’s org chart, even if they hold the keys/run the table/pick your metaphor. That happens to be how AllThingsD operates — in our case, the corporate umbrella belongs to News Corp. — and I can tell you that from an employee’s perspective it’s a pretty effective set-up.

Short version: A few prominent players have accepted Apple’s terms and will be giving Steve Jobs a big chunk of their subscription revenue.

Many more are sticking around the App Store, but removing any kind of e-commerce link from their apps. This makes their apps less useful, but at least it doesn’t cost them any money.

And a third group is trying an end run by building their own Web apps that will work on Apple devices without requiring the company’s approval.

Some examples from each category:

Play along, eat the tax: Some big print publishers, including the New York Times, Condé Nast and Hearst, are working with the new rules.

That means that they’ll hand over 30 percent of the subscription revenue they generate via iOS apps every month, and that they won’t have access to as much consumer data as they’d get if they sold the subscriptions on their own. But they’ll put up with it in order to reach the 225 million iTunes accounts Apple controls.

(Variation on the theme — play along, pass the tax along to consumers: Music subscription service Rdio is accepting Apple’s tax as well. But to protect its margins it is raising the price for subscriptions sold through iOS devices, from $10 to $15. After Apple gets its 30 percent cut, Rdio will end up with the same $10 it would have had before the new rules.)

Stay in iTunes, but grudgingly: This is the “better than nothing” approach. Services like Netflix, Hulu, Rhapsody, Spotify, and publishers like Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp) are keeping their apps in iTunes. But rather than hand over cash and lose access to customer data, they won’t sell any subscriptions through their iTunes apps.

And at Apple’s insistence, they are stripping out any links that send customers to the companies’ home Web sites. This even applies to services that aren’t selling subscriptions at all, but are offering access to content as part of other subscription services. See, for example, ESPN’s WatchESPN app, which tells users that they have to visit an ESPN Web site to sign up for the service, which is free for certain cable company customers. But the app doesn’t offer a live link to the site, just an address.

End run: The Financial Times was the first big media company to build a Web site that mimics an app but works on Apple’s Safari browser, as a way of working around Apple’s restrictions while reaching Apple’s customers. Now Amazon has followed suit, as has Wal-Mart’s Vudu video service.

Note that both the FT and Amazon continue to keep their old apps in iTunes; they’ve just neutered them. You can still read Kindle titles you bought on Amazon’s iOS app, for instance — you just can’t press a button that will take you directly to Amazon’s Web site to buy a new one.

So what does all of that tell us about the App Store ecosystem and how developers will fare in and out of it?

Not much. It’s pretty early. We might have a better idea in a few months when some publicly traded companies like the Times may end up talking about their Apple relationship during earnings calls. (Admittedly, that’s a stretch of a hope: Apple has a way of getting most of its partners to STFU.)

That said, here’s a not-very-out-on-a-limb prediction: Companies who already have lots of customers and are already in frequent communication with them, like Amazon, should do fine outside of the store.

And companies that have lots of potential customers but little traction, like Vudu, will likely struggle. Particularly since that company sells the same thing — video-on-demand rentals and sales — that Apple already sells through iTunes.

Fark.com publisher Drew Curtis says he’s settled a nonsensical suit brought by something called Gooseberry Natural Resources LLC, which claimed Curtis’s site and a host of others had infringed a patent for “news release generation.”

The take-away is that Curtis says he was able to get Gooseberry to drop the suit without having to pay the patent holder a dime; he says he would have countersued but didn’t want to spend the money.

Well worth reading all of Curtis’s words on the topic, but if you’re pressed for time his Fark-ready headline will do: “Patent-infringement lawsuit against Fark settled for zero dollars. Also, patent trolls suck hairy donkey balls.”

Gooseberry’s original suit, filed in January, named several big Web publishing companies, including Condé Nast, Yahoo and AOL, via TechCrunch (you can read the complaint here via another entertainingly titled post).

Curtis says that Yahoo settled “a while back” and that Condé Nast settled this week; he says AOL is still fighting the suit. I’ve asked all three companies, as well as Gooseberry’s lawyer, for comment.

It’s not the New Yorker, but it’s built using the magazine’s intellectual DNA. And instead of the $60 a year the magazine charges for its primary app, this one is 100 percent free.

The “Goings On” app, which will work on both iPhone and Android handsets, is pretty much exactly what you’d expect: The magazine’s weekly listings of New York art exhibits, concerts, etc., tethered to an interactive map.

There are a few extra goodies, too, like audio recordings from New Yorker authors that will work as walking tours: Food writer Calvin Trillin will lead listeners through his favorite eateries and stores, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger navigates the city’s amazing elevated High Line park.

All of which sounds cool, if not groundbreaking. I got a very brief demo last week, but have no idea how it will work in the real world.

It’s worth noting that this is another example of a magazine publisher experimenting with an app that isn’t a straightforward replica of one of its titles. Instead, the app leverages the New Yorker’s brand and its intellectual property to create a new standalone product.

In this case, the magazine is turning that into revenue via an ad deal — MasterCard will be the app’s sole sponsor, via a package deal that also gets the brand into the print magazine — but Conde and other publishers have tried charging customers for standalones, too.

Very good bet that we’ll see more of these from Conde and its competitors, and that they’ll continue to play around with price points. Encouraging experiments.

At $4 a pop — via Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Nobles’ Nook stores — “Rupert Murdoch, The Master Mogul of Fleet Street” costs less than a single copy of the print magazine.

It’s also a bargain if you’re a fan of Murdoch biographer (and non-baseball expert) Michael Wolff, whose work accounts for 20 percent of the copy here.

In other PhoneGate news, News Corp. has told employees at its New York Post tabloid to “preserve and maintain” any documents related to phone hacking.

News Corp., which also owns this Web site, has maintained that none of the systemic voicemail hacking that has come to light at its News of the World tabloid occurred in the U.S., but investigators will be looking into the matter, regardless.

Don’t worry about it, Forbes chairman Steve Forbes tells his staff, via an internal memo which you can read below.

Before we go further: I worked at Forbes for 10 years; I still know lots of folks who work there. Now: The Fortune piece is useful because it details, via internal documents from banker J.P. Morgan, just how badly the bet that Elevation Partners placed on the magazine in 2006 has worked out.

The fact that Elevation (better known as either Roger McNamee’s private equity fund, or Bono’s private equity fund) bought a minority stake in the publisher at close to the market peak has been well known.

But the Fortune piece spells out just how badly timed it was: Elevation’s projections had Forbes generating close to $90 million in EBITDA in 2009; instead, the company had operating losses of $19.7 million. Last year the company went into default on a $90 million credit line.

Fortune also argues that the deal has been a disaster for the Forbes family, but I’m not sure that this is the case. After all, it allowed them to take more than $100 million out of the company while holding on to a majority stake. If they hadn’t done that five years ago, they certainly couldn’t do so today.

Regardless, Fortune does a good job of showing just how precarious life has been at Forbes for the past couple years — as it has been at every business magazine (just ask Portfolio and BusinessWeek) — and the publisher’s uncertain future. Elevation and Forbes have interlocking put and call options that kick in next month, and it will be interesting to see how long Elevation remains a minority owner.

—

Fortune Story on Forbes
Steve Forbes [XXX@forbes.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 9:43 AM
Today Fortune magazine published a story on Forbes with the clear intention of disrupting the business of its most formidable competitor.

Fortune was aware that this was highly confidential, private information and of no value to release to the public. Though the intention is to harm our business, it will not adversely impact Forbes because it highlights a very difficult time in the past when all the media industry was going through unprecedented upheaval.

Forbes has the finest team – you – in the media world today. Forbes is profitable and is successfully navigating these extraordinarily turbulent seas. The company continues to grow and thrive with powerful new strategies and talent.

We are attaching (below) a statement that will be sent later today to the media responding to this article.

Media Statement
Contact: Monie Begley Feurey
SVP Corporate Communications, Forbes Media
XXX@forbes.com

Forbes Media is profitable and in full compliance with all bank loan covenants.

In 2010, as part of a newly formulated strategy, Forbes sold Investopedia for cash realizing a profit on the sale of this investment. The decision to sell this non-core investment was taken
by the board of Forbes Media upon the recommendation of management.

In 2008, Steve Forbes and Tim Forbes, CEO and COO repectively, initiated a reorganization of the company, including the integration of its independent operating units, Forbes magazine and Forbes.com.

They also decided to expand the company management team, which led to the successful recruitment first of Lewis D’Vorkin as Chief Product Officer and then Mike Perlis as CEO of the integrated business.

The last decade has seen unprecedented upheaval across the media industry.Within that decade Forbes magazine, uniquely among its largest competitors, Fortune and Business Week, grew its total readership to record levels – 5.4 million in 2010 – and grew its share of advertising from 33% to 40%. The company also launched 16 local language editions, giving it the largest worldwide brand footprint among business publishers. At the same time, Forbes.com grew to one of the largest and most profitable business websites in the world, with, on average, 20 million monthly unique visitors.

Since 2010, the company has pursued its strategy of putting journalism at the center of social media. This strategy is at the cutting edge of media today, which is why it is garnering support from audiences and advertisers alike.

Elevation Partners are enthusiastic supporters of the direction of the company and have been full participants as these strategies have been developed.

Steve Forbes remains Editor in Chief and Chairman of Forbes Media. Tim Forbes is Chairman of Forbes Digital. The Forbes family remains the controlling shareholder of Forbes Media.

In an important deal for social reading app Flipboard, it has partnered with magazine giant Condé Nast to offer a slew of titles with branded advertising from major marketers American Express and Lexus.

The pair will share in the specially designed program, which will include the New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit. Additional magazines will be added, the companies said.

Flipboard, which is a popular and elegant app for the Apple iPad, has been trying to create strong ties with big publishers as it seeks to dominate distribution in the fast-growing social reading arena. It recently struck a deal with OWN, for example, the new cable network Oprah Winfrey has launched with Discovery.

Here is the official press release:

Condé Nast and Flipboard Launch
Brand Advertising On Flipboard for iPad with The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit

American Express to launch today, Lexus in October

July 25, 2011 — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Today, Flipboard and Condé Nast bring brand advertising to the popular social magazine for iPad with web content from The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit, with additional titles coming to Flipboard throughout 2011. American Express will be first to launch its campaign starting today in The New Yorker with Lexus following suit in October in Bon Appétit, The New Yorker and Wired.

Flipboard’s new program gives publishers and content creators a fresh way to offer magazine-like experiences of their web content with full-page ads to showcase advertiser brands. With a limited number of ad pages available within select content, advertisers benefit from an unprecedented share of voice within an immersive iPad reading experience. A simple tap on the magazine-style ad takes a reader to a brand’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

“Condé Nast is always looking for ways to take advantage of new channels that provide an environment in keeping with our editorial excellence, while offering unique opportunities for readers and advertisers,” said Lou Cona, CMO at Condé Nast. “Flipboard’s social magazine is a great example of that winning combination, while also giving us another way to market our own portfolio of tablet apps.”

Flipboard developed its brand advertising on the popular and groundbreaking iPad in collaboration with Condé Nast including the design and placement of the advertising inside the social magazine. Using a revenue share model, Flipboard will manage inventory and the publisher maintains its direct relationships with advertisers.

“Condé Nast continues to create new experiences for their content that also brings new reach to their advertisers. We are excited to be a part of this overarching strategy and bring their amazing stories, images, publications and advertisers to readers on Flipboard,: said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard.

“At American Express, we actively seek innovative partners that connect our Cardmembers with compelling and creative content through platforms that fit into their evolving digital lifestyle,” said Louis Paskalis, Vice President Global Media, Content Development & Mobile Marketing of American Express. “As such, we are proud to be an inaugural advertising partner for the groundbreaking New Yorker Flipboard edition, which will provide our Cardmembers and consumers everywhere a seamless, next-generation way to experience an iconic magazine in a tablet friendly adaptation.”

Hogan will take the spot last occupied by Patricia Chui, who was fired by AOL in April.

Hogan, who starts his new job June 26, will wear multiple hats: His official title is “Executive Features Editor”, and his duties also include running AOL TV. But his initial focus will be on Moviefone, which he wants to overhaul.

“We really want to take it from something that is successful as a ticket selling site, and try to make it into a robust gathering place for people who follow the movie industry and people who love movies,” he said. Hogan said he’ll hire fulltime editors and writers to beef up content on the site.

AOL fired Hogan’s predecessor after she distributed a memo informing Moviefone freelancers that their contracts were ending, but that they could contribute to the site as unpaid volunteers. Chui’s defenders said she had been treated unfairly by AOL, which was in the process of overhauling all of its editorial teams after acquiring the Huffington Post.

Hogan says he’s comfortable that any controversy  surrounding Chui’s departure has dissipated. “I talked to the folks there about that situation, and I understood where everybody was coming from,” he said.

Hogan became editor of VF.com in 2008; his most recent title was executive digital editor. (Disclosure: I’ve done freelance work for Vanity Fair in the past and am working on a project for the magazine now.)

Here’s a farewell bouquet from Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, via email: “I’ve had the pleasure of watching Michael Hogan hone his editorial skills over the past thirteen years from the assistant’s desk to being head of our digital team. I told him when I moved him to the website, that if he did his job well, he wouldn’t be working for me in three years. He beat the deadline. And he will be missed.”

The move is important because:

• It’s the first major attempt by a publisher to create an HTML5-based Web app that for all intents and purposes works exactly like an iTunes-purchased app.
• It gives the FT a real alternative to iTunes if the FT doesn’t want to accept Apple’s subscription terms.

Apple’s subscription rules have rankled many content owners because they require them to hand over 30 percent of all subscription revenue, every month, for all “in-app” subscriptions sold through iPad and iPhone apps. Even more problematic for print publishers like Pearson’s FT is Apple’s insistence on keeping subscriber data like credit card information to itself.

But since Apple announced the new rules in February, a growing number of content companies, from the New York Times to MLB.com, have announced that they’ll accept them,

Some publishers, like Conde Nast and Hearst, have been able to wring small concessions out of Apple that give them a bit more flexibility, but the general gist remains the same; many content companies are now hoping that they’ll be able to convince most customers to subscribe to their content outside of iTunes, which will let them keep 100 percent of revenue and all subscriber data.

Apple’s deadline to accept the new terms kicks in later this month, and the FT has yet to declare if it’s going to play along. The FT, citing FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw (registration required), says the paper has “no plans to pull out of any apps store,” but that’s not the same as saying it plans to stick around, either. Note opening lines in the promotional video for the app’s, below: “The FT app is moving.”

Spokesman Tom Glover tells me the publisher is “still talking to Apple about the terms for selling subscriptions through iTunes.”

The Web app only works on iOS devices for now, but the paper says versions for Google’s Android platform are in the works. More technical details here.

UPDATE: The FT’s news reminds me that it’s a good time to check in with the Wall Street Journal, which like this Web site is owned by News Corp. The Journal, which has played up its success on Apple’s platform in the past, hasn’t said what it’s going to do about Apple’s subscription rules, and a spokeswoman says that hasn’t changed: “We’re exploring our options.”

Starting Wednesday, some Samsung Galaxy tablet users will be able to buy app versions of seven magazines, as single copies or monthly subscriptions. The deal comes via Next Issue Media, the “Hulu for Magazines” consortium five big publishers put together to build their own digital newsstand.

This is a cautious first step, with lots of caveats, and Next Issue is taking pains to play down expectations, calling it an “early preview.”

And by my calendar, it’s a bit behind Next Issue’s previously announced plans to have something in the market early this year.

But it’s still something. And you could argue that while the digital magazine market formally kicked off last year when Apple introduced the iPad, it’s been moving pretty slowly since then. So Next Issue really hasn’t missed that much.

Details:

• Four of the consortium’s partners are selling titles: Esquire and Popular Mechanics from Hearst; Fitness and Parents from Meredith; the New Yorker from Conde Nast; and Fortune and Time from Time Warner’s Time Inc. News Corp., the other partner, doesn’t publish any print magazines (they do own this Web site, though).
• Prices are set by publishers, who will be able to offer existing print subscribers free digital editions. For now, though, they can’t offer new subscribers print + digital bundles like the ones that Conde Nast has started selling via iTunes. Next Issue CEO Morgan Guenther says that’s coming, along with the possibility of more interesting offers, like Netflix-style subscriptions that let customers swap titles in and out.
• The titles are only available to Galaxy owners who have bought a model with wireless service from Verizon, which sells the titles through a single app available in its Vcast app store.
• Next Issue plans to offer more magazines, on more devices, in the fall. CEO Morgan Guenther says that by the end of the year the consortium will be selling at least 40 titles, and should also have a version of its app available for HP’s WebOS.
• Apple gives publishers 70 percent of each transaction, and Guenther says magazine publishers will get “at least” that much; device-makers or carriers will split the rest with the consortium.
• Crucially, the publishers will get full access to all subscriber information, including credit card numbers. Apple won’t do that.

Again, these magazines will only be available to a subset of a subset of Android tablet owners, which isn’t that big a market to begin with, for now.

But it is a working demonstration of the concept the consortium promised way back in 2009: A single place to get magazines from multiple publishers, controlled by the publishers themselves.

And theoretically, selling magazines on the terms they want on Android will give the publishers more leverage to get what they want from Apple. But they’re a long way from getting Steve Jobs to back down from his terms–let’s see how sales play out on the two different platforms first.

An updated version of that magazine’s iPad app lets users subscribe to the weekly magazine for $5.99 a month, or the equivalent of a $1.50 an issue. That’s a steep discount from the app’s old model, which only sold individual issues for $4.99 a pop.

Conde Nast is selling an annual subscription to the iPad app for $59.99; a yearly subscription to the print version of the magazine costs $69.95. Very important: Conde says print subscribers will get iPad access for free.

At least, I think that’s the case. I’m basing all of this off the New Yorker app’s description in iTunes, but I haven’t been able to get the updated app to work yet on my iPad. The information syncs up, though, with what both AdAge and the New York Post reported last week. (UPDATE: After some futzing about, I’ve got it to work, as advertised. The app still allows you to buy an individual copy for $4.99.)

Assuming Hearst goes through with its plans, Time Warner’s Time Inc. will be the most conspicuous magazine holdout. Time Inc. and Apple just agreed to a deal that allows print subscribers to get app versions of Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time for free, but they still haven’t agreed to subscription terms–which they’ve been stuck on since last summer.

Other big print publishers who have agreed to Apple’s terms include the New York Times, which has said it will start using iTunes to sell subscriptions in June. In February, Conde also announced it would sell digital editions of its magazines for Google’s Android platform, but has yet to do so.

Publishers–and other media companies–have previously balked at both Apple’s proposed cut–it will take 30 percent of each sale–and its control of subscriber data, including credit card information.

But it’s possible that Apple has backed off some of its original terms. Last week Hearst suggested it had gotten Apple to modify at least some of its conditions. And if that’s the case then Apple may be offering revised terms to all subscription partners. I’ve asked Apple and Conde Nast for comment.

The notion of iPad apps enthralled magazine executives a year ago, but sales have been underwhelming for many titles. One common complaint: Publishers have sold the digital titles at the same price as paper-and-ink versions, while most customers have expected to buy them at a steep discount, and to get them free with existing subscriptions.

Now that big publishers are starting to actually do just that, we’ll see if sales improve.

UPDATE: Just got some clarity on the agreement Conde hammered out with Apple. Apple’s fundamental proposition hasn’t changed, but the publisher has gotten a few concessions out of Steve Jobs and Co. Examples via people familiar with the publisher:

• Apple still controls crucial subscriber information, and only allows Conde Nast to ask for name, zip and email. But the publisher now has two chances to ask for user’s email: The first as a standard opt-in screen, and then again on a screen that asks for email and a password in order to get exclusive content.
• Conde has more flexibility on pricing than Apple originally offered. For instance, at one point, Apple didn’t want the publisher to be able to offer a print+digital bundle at a $10 premium to digital-only, but wanted all prices to be the same (which they will be when GQ offers subscriptions later this month: $19.99 a year for digital-only, or digital + print).
• The agreement extends to international markets, etc.

Small stuff, but important to the publisher. Meanwhile, Apple gets what it wants without giving up much it cares about. Steve Jobs wins.

Now Wired would like to remind you that it’s still publishing on the iPad, and the Conde Nast title is offering a pretty good incentive to give it another look: Its newest issue, which should go online today, will be free.

The one-time promotion comes via a sponsorship from Adobe. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Adobe and Wired have been working hand in hand on tablet publishing for nearly two years now.

Wired has also added a few more bells and whistles to the app, including the ability to share stories via Facebook and Twitter. There’s also an e-commerce partnership with Amazon, where  readers can purchase items the magazine writes about via the online store, but without leaving the magazine app itself.

None of that is revolutionary, but it does show you how relatively crude Wired’s first app edition was when it launched last May. In retrospect, for instance, it seems astonishing that it hasn’t had social media links: Any app that launched without them now would be hooted down.

So. Twelve issues in, how’s the app performing on the business side? Conde won’t share many details; Wired publisher Howard Mittman says that monthly download totals have settled into the 20,000 to 30,000 range. That’s down considerably from the first issue, which racked up more than 100,000 downloads, but not surprising.

Those figures might well go up if Conde Nast decides to work with Apple’s subscription plan, which would likely lead to a lower per-issue cost. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

On the other hand, Mittman says that advertisers are even more willing to bet on the app than they were a year ago. Which is surprising, and contrary to what I’ve heard from other publishers about their own titles. Mittman won’t release figures, but he says that today’s issue will generate more advertising dollars than Wired’s first issue a year ago.

According to sources close to the situation, Intel Capital and Advance Publications will lead a $30 million investment round in Kno, the high-profile student tablet start-up.

In addition to the funding from its venture capital arm, Intel itself will consult with Kno on its tablet design. Kno, which is getting out of the hardware business, will now focus on its software to manage the devices that are aimed at the college market.

Intel will not manufacture tablets either. Instead, its engineers will consult with Kno on power management, graphics, display, systems integration, which it does for a variety of its customers.

Along with Intel Capital and Advance, current investors will also participate in the round, said sources. But Intel Capital and Advance, the owner of the Condé Nast publishing empire, make up a big part of the funding.

Sources said Intel Capital’s investment is $20 million and Advance and others make up the rest of it.

BoomTown reported in February that the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up–aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–was considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will now focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

The move is a dramatic shift for the company, which had not shipped significant numbers of the touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so earlier this year.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Before this $30 million, Kno has raised another $46 million in funding to add to an earlier $10 million round.

Sources in February said that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with angel investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

BusinessWeek was first to report that Intel Capital was making the investment in Kno, but the post did not mention Advance’s involvement or that Intel itself was licensing the hardware design business from Kno.

Taylor Barada (pictured here), Yahoo’s recently appointed head of M&A, is joining Zynga in an unspecified role.

Barada replaced Andrew Siegel, who left Yahoo in December to join Condé Nast.

Yahoo staff was told of the move yesterday.

According to his bio at the Silicon Valley Internet giant:

“Taylor works with the Americas and Global Product orgs at Yahoo! leading strategic analysis/execution of acquisitions, divestitures, investments and other strategic relationships. Recent transactions include the sale of Zimbra to VMware and the acquisition of Citizen Sports. Prior to Yahoo! he worked as an investor, consultant, and operator at Rosewood Capital, Bain & Company, and Peregrine Systems. Taylor started his career as a professional soccer player and was a three time National Champion at the University of Virginia while completing his B.A. in History and Foreign Affairs.”

Barada’s departure to the San Francisco online gaming phenom–which was apparently able to extend him a more lucrative offer–will will put a crimp in Yahoo’s already slow-moving merger and acquisition strategies.

Yahoo declined to comment and I have emailed Zynga and have not yet heard back.

So this one’s a bit of a head-scratcher: Conde Nast is going to raise the prices of two of its tablet titles.

GQ and Vanity Fair used to offer readers who’d already bought a single digital issue a discount on subsequent purchases. But it’s doing away with that next month.

So effectively, loyal readers of  GQ on the iPad will see prices go from $2.99 to $4.99 an issue, while Vanity Fair will go from $3.99 to $4.99.

The move is part of Conde’s decision to move those two titles, along with Glamour, from a digital publishing system it had built itself last year to one from Adobe. That’s the same system Conde already uses to publish Wired magazine and other titles, and it’s the one the publisher chose after a bake-off last fall.

The shift means Conde will stop supporting the existing apps for those three titles at Apple’s iTunes store, and will ask users to download new apps over the coming weeks. Anyone who bought digital versions of the three magazines in the last year will still be able to read them, as long as they’ve downloaded and archived the issues.* And Conde is giving readers a heads up via in-app ads like the one to the left.*

Conde will try to goose sales for Glamour, the first magazine to shift platforms, by cutting the app’s price down to $0.99 for a week starting next Tuesday. Which should be a good way to help the app move to the top of iTunes’ charts — people love cheap apps.

So why push the price back up after that? And why raise prices for the other two titles?

Conde says the platform shift gives the publisher a chance to “reexamine pricing”, and that it now wants to sell all of its digital titles at the same price analog copies command at a newsstand. (Or close to it – both the New Yorker and Wired still sell for a dollar less at iTunes than their paper counterparts).

Which is really a way of saying “boy oh boy would we like to sell subscriptions, because when we do, we’ll offer monthly or yearly committments at a steep discount to individual sales, just like we do with paper copies.”

But that’s not going to be happening at iTunes anytime soon, because none of the big magazine publishers have shown any inclination to accept Apple’s subscription rules — at least for titles they’re already selling in paper form. Meanwhile Conde has announced that it plans to sell its digital magazines for Google’s Android this spring – but has yet to mention subscriptions.

*If you have to reset your machine entirely, though, you’ll be out of luck altogether. Sometimes digital just isn’t as durable as paper and ink.

**The shift also means that anyone who has enjoyed reading Glamour, GQ or Vanity Fair on their iPhone is out of luck. Conde says for the near-term, its new magazine apps will only be formatted for the iPad.