Publisher’s Jitters in Frankfurt: Attendees at the Frankfurt Book Fair told surveyers what they thought were the biggest the challenges and threats facing the industry:

— Digitization (53 percent)
— Increasing globalization (24 percent)
— User-generated content (22 percent)
— Territorial rights battles (15 percent)
e-Books and Audiobooks lead the list of major areas of growth. CIQ: We are very impressed with those publishers converting their backlists to XML to face the digital future. We’d like to see someone put a big catalogue of OEM content on an eReader to promote adoption.

Google Phone: (NYT) Some call it a phone. Some call it an OS. This story describes the GPhone as a kind of “open-source operating and Web-browsing software that would compete with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.” CIQ: We would love to see an open-source phone plaform. And, our advice based on the iPhone experience we recently had: Get the typing part right.

Big Four on Acquisition Binge: (LA Times) To compete with the New York Times, independent blogs, and others, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and Google have been on an acquisition binge. Collectively they have spent $10B. CIQ: Content, these days, is a very rich queen.