Amazon.com will reportedly purchase digital audiobook provider Audible.com in the second quarter of this year for $300 million. Smart, smart, smart.

The purchase will allow Amazon to offer up Audbile’s 80,000+ audio programs (mostly books, newspapers, and certain radio programs) for download to its digital content customers. Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has an audio jack that would likely be put to good use with such an acquisition.

Audible files are already compatible with Kindle and, if you remember way back when, Audible.com used to subsidize the purchase of certain MP3 players when you signed up for a year-long audiobook subscription for around $15 per month. It’d be nice if that same strategy was implemented again to drive down the price of the $400 Kindle.

Amazon.com buys Audible; March into digital content distribution continues [ZDNet]