For people who have been doing just one thing for a long, long time, it’s amazing how many content distributors get things so catastrophically wrong.
These last few weeks brought us quite a few unique situations, including the launch of Apple’s iBook Author software as well as a number of announcements from the studios to withhold streaming rights for Netflix viewers. Cory Doctorow points to a particularly delightful bit of DRM making the rounds in publishing right now, something that will be familiar iTunes users who found their real names embedded in music files a while back. → Read More
Barnes & Noble is now heavily discounting (and even giving away free) NOOK devices with digital subscriptions to a magazine or newspaper, the first time a bookseller has ever done this type of promotion if I’m not mistaken.
The company, which is considering spinning off its NOOK business into a separate unit, this morning said customers who purchase a one-year NOOK subscription to The New York Times will receive a NOOK Simple Touch e-reader at no cost (instead of $99).
Alternatively, customers can also get a NOOK Color for $99 instead of $199 with their NYT subscription, which for the record is $19.99 per month for full digital access. → Read More
Two bits of news crossed the wire this morning, neither of them good for traditional publishing. First, Barnes&Noble has reportedly put their publishing arm, Sterling Publishing, up for sale, a company it bought in 2009 for $115 million. Sterling produces puzzle, game, and crafts books for kids and adults. Not as big a deal as it sounds, but it still points to a reduced interest in paper-based sudoku.
Second, B&N is mulling the spin-off of the Nook business, a move that will shelter the burgeoning epub business and, more important, pull it out of the listing ship that is B&N proper. The company reported a loss of $6.6 million this quarter, down about half from last year, but the Nook business has thus far been quite lucrative, leading the company to “pursue strategic exploratory work to separate the NOOK business.” → Read More
Barnes & Noble this morning reported sales and earnings for its second quarter ended October 29, 2011, and they’re a mixed bag. Total sales decreased slightly, from $1.9 billion to $1.89 billion, compared to the prior year.
The company posted a net loss of $6.6 million for the quarter, or $0.17 per share, as compared to a net loss of $12.6 million last year. This is below Wall Street expectations.
B&N further said that the consolidated NOOK business across all of the company’s segments, including sales of digital content, device hardware and related accessories, increased 85 percent in the second quarter to $220 million, on a comparable sales basis. → Read More
I hate these kind of videos. There’s enough waste in electronics that we don’t need to destroy stuff that is in already perfect condition (hence our refusal to post those ridiculous Will It Blend videos). However, this is for science! → Read More
In the mad rush to push out more and more Android slate products, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are like a calm port in the storm. Their devices are touted as ereaders but, after a bit of digging, you find that they are now considerably more interesting – and compelling – as tablet products for an entry level market. They are not threatening nor are they particularly difficult to grasp. In short, they are the perfect neophyte’s tablet, a cross between the simplicity of an e-ink ereader and a fully-featured mobile device. It’s good enough at both that people buying it for one purpose will be pleased with the device’s other strengths; depending on what you want, it’s either an Android slate in ereader’s clothing or vice versa.
As it stands, the Nook Tablet is an impressive bit of machinery. It is a solid slab of electronics designed to do a few things exceedingly well and – sadly – a few things quite poorly. As a color, touchscreen ereader it is one of the best and, for those with an adventurous bent, I can imagine this becoming a useful media and app device. → Read More
Digitimes, quoting “sources from upstream supply chains,” is stating that PC manufacturers like Dell, Acer, and HP are building fewer tablet products in direct reaction to devices like the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Nook Tablet. Citing an inability to gain traction against devices with rich content to back them up, the manufacturers are looking elsewhere to regain a foothold in the mobile market.
In truth, manufacturers know they won’t get far building vehicles for Android, Google Music notwithstanding. Building and marketing a tablet like the Xoom or the Asus Transformer is a perilous process and is buffeted by the whims of a price-conscious consumer. It doesn’t make economic sense to build and try to sell a few hundred thousand slates that will be considered obsolete in a few months. → Read More
The Nook Tablet, announced last week to much fanfare, is a follow-up to the company’s popular Nook Color and a direct competitor to Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire. I’ve only just got this device into my hot little hands so expect a full review this week but initial impressions are good.
The device is about as big as the Nook Color and the Fire, although the Tablet is considerably more streamlined than Amazon’s offering. The OS is clean and clear with a small ribbon of icons along the bottom of the home screen for video and music as well as newsstand and book apps. There is also an apps menu consisting of a number of preloaded apps including a mail app, Doodle Jump, a crossword app, Hulu Plus, and something called “Angry Birds” that appears to be a bird-spotting companion.
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We’ve grabbed some footage of the Nook Tablet in the flesh and it was interesting to see how responsive and speedy the device was, especially when compared to the Nook Color. This is a full multimedia tablet with plenty of power for video and rich content and everything sped by without much lag or stuttering.
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In late September, Amazon unveiled a $199 tablet called the Kindle Fire. Obviously this left a massive divide in the market between the much pricier iPad 2 and the new Kindle Fire, which Barnes & Noble has this morning responded to. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I’m pleased to introduce you to the Nook Tablet. → Read More
With the launch of the Kindle Fire tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to write a little bit sci-fi and imagine what the publishing market will look like in the next ten or so years. I’m a strong proponent of the ebook and, as I’ve said again and again, I love books but they’re not going to make it past this decade, at least in most of the developed world.
As we well know, ebook sales are now outpacing hardback sales and publishers are now crowing ebook numbers alongside their traditional in-store sales numbers. Soon those in-store sales numbers will dwindle and disappear simply because there will be no stores – heavy readers, the folks who buy genre fiction by the basket-full will be happy to head over to Nooks and Kindles, especially when they drop below $99 (as they will this year). → Read More
Last Friday, Amazon sent out invites to a press conference being held this coming Wednesday. They didn’t give away any details in the invite, but given our scoop earlier this month, everyone assumed it was to unveil the new Kindle tablet. We can now confirm this is correct. And we know a bit more.
On Wednesday morning in New York City, Amazon will unveil the Kindle Fire. Yes, this is the name Amazon has settled on, to help differentiate the product from the e-ink Kindles, which will still be very much alive and for sale. And while Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will show off the Fire on stage, it won’t be ready to ship until the second week of November, we’ve learned. → Read More
The ninjas at The Digital Reader have uncovered the names of two new Nook Color versions – the Encore, priced at $249, and the Acclaim, priced at $349. The Nook Touch (now called the Nook Smart Touch) will remain $139.
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The full line of Nook wares are hitting Radio Shack stores and RadioShack.com beginning October 3. The Nook will join the Kindle and a dozen generic ereaders within the 3,000 Radio Shack locations and select franchises throughout the US. These stores will carry both the Nook Touch and the Nook Color along with a likely stunted line of accessories. → Read More
Although it is free to develop for the B&N Nook Color’s homegrown version of Android, the company is courting devs who may or may not be as comfortable with the vagaries of Android development by selecting Appcelerator as a partner to help “accelerate” app development for the platform.
Appcelerator makes Titanium mobile, an IDE that focuses on web devs rather than hardcore coders. It is a cross-platform development system that allows you to create apps for multiple devices using languages like PHP, Ruby, and standard HTML and has already been used in NBC’s iPad app, among others. → Read More
It’s called simply the “Amazon Kindle”. But it’s not like any Kindle you’ve seen before. It displays content in full color. It has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen. And it runs Android.
Rumors of Amazon making a full-fledged tablet device have persisted for a while. I believe we were one of the first to report on the possibility from a credible source — the same person who accurately called Amazon’s Android Appstore. That source was dead-on again, it just took Amazon longer than anticipated to get the device ready to go. They’re now close.
How do I know all of this? Well, not only have I heard about the device, I’ve seen it and used it. And I’m happy to report that it’s going to be a big deal. Huge, potentially. → Read More
At the beginning of the year, Apple said it wanted 30% of everything sold through the iPad platform. You could sell almost anything – books, downloadable content, magazines, pictures of kittens – but, according to their subscription rules, everything had to go through Apple itself and you could not, in short, go out to a web page to complete the transaction. That promise – to shut down external web stores on the iPad – has been fulfilled and the Nook, Kindle, Kobo, and Google Books apps have just been either drastically changed or removed from the App Store entirely. → Read More
Got an “old” ereader you want to “upgrade?” Get yourself a Nook and B&N will throw in $315 worth of free books, 30 titles in all, including “Glory in the Fall: The Greatest Moments in World Series History, 21st Century Crossword Puzzle Dictionary, My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me” along with some public domain titles. There are some cook books in there and a few other interesting titles but it’s not like you’re going to score a complete Stephen King library or anything.
Beginning Friday, while supplies last, customers will receive a free, 2GB microSD card loaded with 30 NOOK Books – from cooking and lifestyle to classics and reference –when they show a bookseller their old device and purchase the NOOK reader that best suits them.
