The iPad is "the next big thing" to many of the big newspaper companies. They've been starving for some time and desperate for some chance at grabbing a portion of their lunch money back after blogs and free, online news aggregators stole their readers.

Most of the major book publishers too have fallen all over themselves to sign deals with Apple. For the Kindle, Amazon demanded inflexible pricing well below where the publishers want to position their ebooks, and no one else has had a platform large enough to even give the publishers some leverage in negotiations.

Additionally, textbook publishers are talking of including multimedia and timely updates to their books, an effort to keep them timely and useful as the Internet assails that industry as well. Plus, eliminating that pesky used textbook market would be...pleasant.

Apple won't have to work to market the iPad. The big media companies have good reason to make sure the public is aware of Apple's new wonder device.

The web browser is ending the traditional method of winning control of the operating system market--and the hardware underneath: have the apps. For the next round, Apple aims to wield content.