The Washington Post app will come pre-installed on new Kindles

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has already started making his mark at The Washington Post as the newspaper’s new owner. First, he tackled costs, by slashing employees’ retirement benefits, and now, he’s trying to drum up what others have found difficult in this digital age: Revenue. BusinessWeek’s Brad Stone has learned that for the past few months the Post has been working on building a new mobile application that will come pre-installed on Amazon’s new Fire tablet.

Jeff Bezos wants to turn the Washington Post into a national publication, and he’s going to use his other company—Amazon.com—to help achieve that goal. For the past few months, a group inside the Post has been working on a new application that will offer a curated selection of news and photographs from the daily newspaper in a magazine-style, tablet-friendly format. The application will come preinstalled on Amazon’s newly updated Kindle Fire tablet, expected to be launched later this fall with the larger 8.9-inch screen, according to people with knowledge of the Post’s plans. The app will be free for owners of the larger Kindle, at least at first. It will eventually be available for download on other Kindles as well as to owners of Apple’s iPad and various Android devices, and it will carry a monthly subscription fee. A Post spokesperson declined to comment.