• Media Memo, Friday, January 8, 2010 3:26 PM

In the middle of the gadget scrum that is the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Hearst is quietly showing its first e-reader. The Skiff Reader will be supported by Sprint, but a release date or retail price have yet to be set. Specifics and aesthetics aside, MediaMemo insists that "the driving idea ... is to create a platform for producing, distributing and selling magazines and newspapers on a variety of devices."

The big question remains how the Skiff will fit into the "Hulu for magazines" consortium that Time Inc. announced last year, and of which Hearst is a member. Writes MediaMemo: "Ask the various publishers in the group what they think will become of Skiff and you'll get confusing responses, all of which sound like a muttered version of 'I don't know.'"

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