In anticipation of the Consumer Electronics Show, which runs from January 7-10, the magazine publisher Hearst has taken the wraps of their own new entrant into the e-Reader club. Called the Skiff, it has a similar form factor to Amazon’s Kindle DX, presumably to offer the most possible screen room to display Heart’s content as it might appear in an actual magazine. And of course sports the now-obligatory e-Ink technology for ease of viewing.

Hearst also announced that they’re teaming up with Sprint to offer wireless 3G connectivity for the Skiff, and Sprint revealed plans to sell the Skiff on Sprint.com and in their many Sprint retail outlets. Particularly astute Kindle aficionados might recall that Amazon severed their ties with Sprint back in October, due in large part to concerns about their ability to handle 3G coverage abroad. The newer Kindle International, now the de-facto Kindle 2 SKU, runs on AT&T’s more robust wireless network. This appears like Sprint’s way of getting back in the e-Reader game.

A big question mark for the Skiff right now is whether they’ll be able to infuse the device with enough content partnerships to get people to even give it a second glance. Hearst is leading a consortium of publishers that includes the likes of Time Warner, Conde Nast, News Corp., and Meredith, all of whom are likely to offer their magazine content for the device. Evidently, they’d like to branch out into newspapers, comic books, and blogs as well, but it doesn’t appear like books are on the table.

Just about the only thing about the Skiff that really strikes me as intriguing is the partnership they’ve inked with Nielsen and comScore to handle advertising analytics for the device. Presumably, they’ll be able to tailor the advertising in the digital version of a magazine to suit a user’s particular reading habits. Do you read a lot of articles about travel? Expect to see a bunch of ads for Expedia and Travelocity. This is an area that Amazon and B&N haven’t even begun to broach yet, so it’ll be interesting to see how they handle it.

I really don’t think the device stands a chance. Unless they leverage the advertising revenue to offer the Skiff at a deep discount at retail, there’s no way people are going to spend the cash on a device with such a limited range of content. And while advertising models are interesting to geeks like me, there’s almost nothing about the Skiff to set it apart from the other also-ran entrants getting into the e-Reader market this year.

What is important is whether Amazon begins to consider such an advertising strategy as well. Speaking personally, I always thought of my Kindle as a calm peaceful place in a world insistent on cramming advertising into every nook and cranny of our everyday lives. Here’s hoping we don’t lose that.