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.

In a column at Publishers Weekly, he writes:

If there is anything that exemplifies the delusional nature in some publishing boardrooms today, however, it is the phrase “social DRM.” For those unfamiliar with the term, social DRM is another name for an unencrypted e-book that has the purchaser’s name (and often contact information) inserted in it, via some kind of digital watermarking. The idea is that e-book customers will be reluctant to share their e-books around if they know that their name and information will travel with the books, either because they don’t want to be shamed for being patient zero in a widespread epidemic of unauthorized copying, or out of fear of legal reprisals from publishers should a copy with their name on it show up on the Pirate Bay.

The delusion of publishers isn’t in their belief that social DRM will keep people from sharing. The real delusion lies in the use of “social DRM” in connection with the marketing and sale of e-books. Recently, I discovered some publishers actually advertising their use of social DRM.

Social DRM and release speed-bumps are, in the end, as laughable as SOPA/PIPA, CSS, Kindle encryption, and all of the DRMs and “road blocks” that came before them. The only real DRM – digital rights management, in its purest sense – is a reasonably-priced product sold everywhere in the the world quickly, easily, and, in the case of media like books and shows, the ability to be shared. Amazon and B&N clearly know this, and the gaming industry is learning. Music distributors have had this truth foisted upon them and they seem to be accepting it – with some hiccups – quite gamely. However, books and movies are still fighting the endless fight, attempting to make Amazon, Netflix, and other distributors bow to their will just as, once upon a time, book sellers and movie theaters went along with their harebrained schemes just to stay in business.

Piracy is a huge problem, but it’s a problem that’s solved through distribution, not DRM. As Paul Carr notes, “people who illegally copy books on a large scale, for personal profit, should be buried up to their necks in sand until ants eat their lungs from the inside.” End of story and replace books with anything created by a person who loves to make art.

The books/discs and mortar stores worked because in any town anywhere in the world, a kid could walk down to the local Buzzard’s Nest or B. Dalton or Barnes & Noble and plunk down $12.95 for a cassette of Duran Duran. These days, that same kid can get the cassette for nothing. The key, then, is to supplant that model through fair and easy pricing world-wide, ensuring less “effusive” but similar revenue streams. If I can buy a bestseller with one click on the Kindle, I’m far less likely to steal it.

To be clear, this is a 36-year-old’s view of the landscape. There are plenty of folks for whom the prospect of spending $12.95 or $10 or even $0.99 on an album is not feasible. But you don’t sell to those folks. You sell to your customers and hope the rest of the world becomes potential customers.

This is the tipping point for DRM. We are at a stage where our devices are so divorced from the actual plumbing of content distribution that to download an MP3 or MP4 will soon be as alien to coming generations as sliding a punch card through an IBM reader. You could argue that this is already true in that Kindle and iPhone owners can get music and books instantly, without understanding the format, the methodology, or networking. Whispernet, for example, is a perfect book distribution system. It works anywhere, it works with one click, and it is so ridiculously easy that you forget you’re spending money.

As much as free software folks bemoan the loss of the general purpose computer, in a few years our experience in consuming content will be mediated beyond recognition. Distributors and artists can do it the right way – at a fair price that will ensure folks will actually pay for content – or the wrong way by putzing around with release dates, ridiculous pricing differentials in different markets, and consistent dedication to the false church of DRM.

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 costs $19.99 per month for full digital access.

Customer who are interested in Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Tablet, meanwhile, can get it for $199 instead of $249 when they choose to purchase a one-year NOOK subscription to PEOPLE (which costs $9.99 per month).

Obviously, Barnes & Noble is counting on the promotion to sell more NOOKs, in which case you can be sure other retailers will follow in their footsteps.

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.”

The Nook generated most of B&N’s online sales for a total of $327 million in revenue, an increase of 43%. Quote a B&N press release, “This increase was driven by continued growth of the NOOK business, offset by a decline in online physical product sales.” All nook sales brought the company $448 million, with an increased potion of that coming through third-party retailers – a point that doesn’t look good for the actual book stores.

In all, they sold 70% more Nook devices over last year.

As much as I want the halcyon days of Raymond Carver sending off his ream of short stories to Gordon Lish in New York to return – the old bear-man sighing contentedly as he finishes his last bottle of gin, burping gently as his eyes caress the waning sunlight falling over the hood of his new hard-won Cadillac as the publishing industry churns in that vast belly of the East Coast Moloch – but let’s be serious. The real money makers – cookbooks and crossword puzzles – are clearly not even making B&N much cash, which suggests that the other publishers who depend on fast-turnaround, low-cost content to support the grand publishing pyramid where The Corrections is supported by sales of Kim Kardashian’s tips to a better marriage, are pretty much sunk.

The long tail is curling up on itself. Books that never would have seen the light of day, full of vampires, florid prose, and covers that look like they were done by a medicated third-grader, are selling like Dickens for 99 cents a pop. Back catalogs are being decimated by digital reprints and even the dream of print on demand is reaching it’s obvious conclusion. There is no such thing as vanity publishing anymore, just writing that is good and writing that is bad. The market then decides.

Pour out a little strong coffee for B&N’s book stores, folks. The captain is disembarking ship.

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.

Physical book sales declined, Barnes & Noble says, offset by increases in NOOK products and positively affected by the liquidation of the remaining Borders stores.

BN.com sales, meanwhile, increased a decent 17 percent over the prior year, from $177 million to $206 million.

Zooming in on its NOOK business, Barnes & Noble boasted about the successful kick-off for its NOOK Tablet.

The $249 device was introduced on November 7, 2011. In the first few weeks of launch, the company says the NOOK Tablet has become the fastest selling NOOK product in its history.

Says William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble:

“We expect to sell millions of devices during our third quarter, adding to the millions of current NOOK customers.”

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.

The company also says it plans to invest more heavily in customer acquisition activities to fuel NOOK digital growth. However, as a result, B&N expects full year EBITDA to be at the lower end of the previously issued range of $210 million to $250 million.

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!

A seemingly new site, Gizmoslip did a Mythbusters on the Nook Tablet and theKindle Fire. The winner, as you’ll find out, was the Nook Tablet. The Fire’s screen shattered fairly effusively while the Nook took some long cracks in the corner.

Does this prove anything? Probably not, but clearly the Nook’s fairly clunky-looking plastic edging was good for something.

The Short Version
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.

Amazon’s new Fire, which we’ll review shortly, takes a certain tack – low-priced, cloud oriented content consumption – while the Nook Tablet takes a decidedly different one. Priced at $249 – still cheaper than even the least-outfitted Android tablet – and aimed at a slightly more techie audience, the Nook Tablet is an ereader first and a tablet second.

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.

The Nook Tablet is a tablet for everyone. It is solid, easy to use, and most of Android’s rough edges have been burred off. Although there are some odd UI choices and frustrations, everything is in its right place. It is, in short, a perfectly slimmed down Android tablet masquerading as an ereader – something many will prefer over Kindle Fire’s obviously service-oriented approach.

Features:

• 7-inch color display
• MicroSD card slot for storage
• Video and audio playback
• 1GHz TI OMAP4 (dual-core) processor with 1GB RAM
• MSRP: $249

Pros:

• Light and portable
• Long battery life
• App sideloading is possible

Cons:

• Odd storage usage leaves you with about 1GB of personal space
• No dedicated video player
• Some issues with PDF display

What Is It?
The device has a 7-inch touchscreen that is surprisingly bright and readable. The front panel is grey plastic and the edge of the device is made of silver plastic. There is a small notch taken out of the lower left corner, something that I assume is useful of you wish to attach a lanyard to this thing. The back is the most pleasant aspect of the device. The soft touch plastic feels quite a bit like soft leather or suede.

There are exactly four buttons – a central home button, shaped like the Nook N, a power button on the upper left and two volume or control buttons on the right. There is a microUSB port at the bottom and a small flap that pops up near the notch where you can fit a microSD card. There is a speaker grille at the bottom and a small hole for a microphone at the top. Finally, there is a headphone jack at the top.

To power it on you simply hold down the power button. It boots in about a minute and starts back up in about 2 seconds. There are small audio cues for the various functions, including plugging into the USB cable and unlocking and locking the device. These can be turned off.

There is no camera.

The Nook Tablet is a direct descendent of Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color. As the name states, it’s a tablet, but not in the PC sense. The branding and UI points to the more primordial view of “tablet,” which suggests that this device is more like a cuneiform tablet to an early scribe than anything Bill Gates held up as the future of computing in 2001. However, the use of the word “tablet” is important in marketing this device. At $249, it can be perceived as being far more expensive than the Kindle Fire (although it’s not) and by naming the “Tablet” rather than the “Slate” or the “Runik Booke,” B&N is ostensibly saying “This is a computing device that we made for readers.”

When you connect the device to a Mac or PC, the onboard storage appears. If you add a microSD card, this card also appears as a separate drive, something that could be confusing to new users. The device automatically sets up a certain number of folders for B&N use as well as your private use and it scans those folders each time you unplug the device.

The device comes with 13GB of space available but there is, as they say, a rub. As you see here, the “MyNOOK” disk appears to only have 1GB available. The rest of that space is taken up by the Nook software and content. Quoth the website:

1GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual formatted capacity may be less. Approximately 13GB available to store content, of which up to 12GB may be reserved for content purchased from the Barnes & Noble NOOK Store.7microSD™ or microSDHC™ memory cards sold separately. microSD and microSDHC are trademarks of SD-3C

This means you simply must install a MicroSD card, a prospect that many might find onerous. However, if you’re not planning on dragging MP4 movies onto this thing, you might be able to scrape by. If there is any major flaw in this device it is this odd problem of disk usage.

B&N will offer digital video rental and downloads “early next year” which is why this space has been roped off. The magazines and other rich content are apparently also large files, said a B&N spokesperson, so that space has been dedicated to “official” content rather than side-loaded ad hoc content.

Usability
The Nook Tablet UI is fairly straightforward. After sliding to unlock the main screen, you’re presented with a carousel of books and items you’ve recently used. You can drag these to the main screen much like apps in any Android phone and they remain persistent there. Along the bottom is a row of small icons – Books, Newsstand, Movies, Music, Apps – and there are small icons signifying the microSD card and the book you’ve just read. Up in the top corner of the home screen is the “More” menu that supplies possibly interesting items for your consumption.

The music player is nearly stock Android and the media player lumps photos and video into one app, a frustrating experience. However, everything else is fairly custom, from the epub/PDF reader to the app store.

Searching for apps is slightly frustrating. Because the Nook App Store is limited by B&N, looking for common apps like “Rockplayer” is almost impossible, returning instead a list of books with those words in the titles.

Browsing through the device is quick and clean. There is some of the old “Android lag” – pages move a bit too slowly, apps take a bit to spin up, but generally all of the reading experiences are more than adequate and the various apps available run as they would on any modern tablet.

The browser is just that – an Android browser with Flash Player 10.3.186.6 installed. I was able to browse TechCrunch in its full, Flash-enhanced glory while some sites exhibited some quirks associated with mobile browsers including failing to load backgrounds and defaulting to mobile versions of the site. The browser has a bookmarks feature as well as most visited and history tabs.

The device allows you to link your Facebook, Twitter, and Google accounts via the social settings tab. Facebook and Twitter allow for text sharing with the world at large while Google connectivity allows you to add your contacts as Nook friends. You can get recommendations from your friends using a feature called Nook friends, although this feature is somewhat muted in this version of the Nook software.

As I said before, this OS takes the edge off of Android but folks familiar with the OS will see most of the similarities. It is, to be clear, eminently usable and anyone – from an Android hacker to my mom – would be able to easily buy, read, and share books and some media.

Reading
First and foremost, this is an ereader. The screen is bright and crisp and when reading epub documents the formatting is unimpeachable. It is a backlit screen so outdoor reading is possible but not encouraged.

As a reader, the Nook Tablet works quite well. Books are as you’d expect and you can control the font size and orientation. Magazines really shine on this device. Issues of National Geographic and Food + Wine looked amazing on the bright, clear screen and the magazine reader was really quite nice – it could replace iOS’ newsstand for me if enough titles become available.

Comics appear just like magazines, with big, bright, and bold colors. If anything, the Nook excels at this sort of content.

Another fun feature is the built-in “read along” features for children’s books. I read a page of The Elephant Child into the device’s microphone and my kids can then pick my recording from an onscreen menu. The audio is actually recorded right onto the device and is available in M4A format for later download, which makes it useful for folks who might want to record junior reading a book.

When it comes to reading on this device the central question is whether you want the bright, bold colors of the Tablet or the muted – but more readable – e-ink display on the Nook or Kindle Touch devices. If you’re only reading on this thing, I wonder if you wouldn’t be better served by an e-ink device. However, the color screen adds considerable depth to the standard reading experience and has much to recommend it.

Video, Images, And Music
Now for the secondary functions. Barnes & Noble want this device to exist as an “HD media” player, which is a noble goal though, at 1024×600, B&N’s interpretation of “HD” differs considerably from the rest of the humanity’s. If by HD media they mean the ability to view videos on a fairly large, fairly bright screen, then why don’t they just say it?

Aside from this obviously malarkey, viewing videos on this is a dream and, coupled with an SD card and plenty of MPEG4 rendered content, you have something akin to what the iPod Touch was a few years ago – a capable device that you can take with you on the plane to watch a few movies.

Amazon’s Fire is all about the cloud. I’m pleased that this device is less about the cloud and more about content that is right on your device. Streaming movies is usually impossible on flights and in certain situations, sans Wi-Fi, so unless you plan on doing all of your watching at home there’s little to be said about files in the ether. Granted, both the Kindle and Nook have plenty of storage for downloaded content, but Amazon’s is a bit more tied into their own store than I particularly like.

If you must use the cloud, the Nook Tablet supports Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Showtime and should support other apps down the line. For music you have Pandora, Rhapsody, and Grooveshark although I was wildly sad to find Rdio and Spotify missing (although I did find a book called Spotify For Dummies, which shows you the problem with a unified book/app search).

It’s too soon to assess battery life but in my time with the device I didn’t notice much of a drain while watching video vs. simple reading.

The onboard speaker is more than sufficient in a small, quiet room but you wouldn’t want to be stuck listening to it for long.

Who Is It For?
So who wants this thing? Well, anyone who has used a Nook before, prefers Barnes & Noble over Amazon, and is looking for a device to partake in simple content consumption.

The Nook Tablet isn’t for everyone, however. If you are, for example, a big reader and are simply looking for something to stuff into a briefcase for a long plane ride, I think you will be better served by a device like the Nook Simple Touch or Kindle Touch. iPad owners will probably find much of the functionality duplicated here although the size and screen are a bit more manageable than the iPad’s.

If you’re looking for a less expensive but carefully curated media experience – with the backing of Barnes & Noble – this is probably the device for you. With the arrival of video rentals and downloads as well as the music apps, you’ve got an ereader with extras.

As a bonus, the Nook Color – and, eventually, the Nook Tablet – has a very rich modding community around it. Many of the limitations I mentioned above are already being circumvented and it’s only a matter of time before this device begins running modded firmware. Like all Android devices, there is more than meets the eye.

Bottom Line
As I said before, the Nook Tablet is an ereader with extras. You’re looking at a nice media device that also displays books. It has a few near-fatal flaws, but those can be remedied by the tech-savvy and ignored by everyone else. As it stands it is a strong and impressive improvement to the underpowered Nook Color and it is probably one of the better Android tablets I’ve used. Whether you go Nook or Kindle is actually a matter of preference for the parent companies as the hardware is nearly identical and most ways and if you already have a great deal invested in B&N content, this is a worthy and exciting upgrade to anything you’ve used in that family thus far.

Product Page

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.

It seems that only Samsung, with their Galaxy Tabs, has gained any brand recognition. The rest of the players are, at best, also-rans.

Amazon and, to an extent, Barnes & Noble, have the right idea: they sell the device to sell the content. There is no reason, for example, that the eink versions of the Kindle and Nook shouldn’t be free with Amazon Prime or content subscription services other than to prevent the perception that the devices are cheap. I can understand charging a bit for the color devices like the Tablet and the Fire, but if (to murder a metaphor) Amazon is selling the razor cheap and the blades at a premium, then it makes little sense for folks like HP to sell the arguably superior straight razors they’ve been trying to ship.

The pattern of boom and bust in tablets closely follows the rise and fall of the netbook. The netbook was supposed to save the PC industry – and it did – until people started competing on price. Now the concept of a netbook is laughable in the face of the ultrabook and the more popular tablets and it took far too long for PC manufacturers to realize this. By reacting swiftly to reduced interest in their wares and focusing on consumer experience in higher margin items – namely Windows 8 devices in a laptop form factor, it just makes sense for most of these guys to pull the plug on their misguided slate dreams.

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.

Performance-wise everything on the device is adequate if not superior to many tablets I’ve tried. It’s an e-reader so you probably won’t be running SETI@Home on this thing, but the data rich Netflix app ran through lists of movies with the barest hint of a stutter while the reader is smooth and quick on most books – although there was some lag while rendering large PDF files. The device has a nice, small speaker that can be used in a pinch to listen to music and movies.

The browser is what it is – a mobile browser with some limited multimedia support and Flash Player 10.3 on board (not that that matters anymore). It has about 16GB of storage on board for B&N downloads with an SD card slot for expansion.

I’ll have more detail on this thing this week, but until then leave questions on the Nook Tablet in comments and I’ll try to answer them in the review.

In general, the original Nook was noticeably slower, especially when going from a page of text to a graphics-intensive page. Was it enough to warrant a wholesale upgrade? No, but as the 1.1 rolls out to older Nooks, owners of the previous version will be able to experience these savings.

I did notice a very slight improvement in screen brightness on the new model, which could point to a different screen provider. Generally, however, the improvements are so minor as to be negligible but, given the battery improvements, 1.1 is definitely an upgrade path to follow once it comes online.

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.

We saw the reader, the video player, the comic book viewer, and the recording feature for kid’s books, a feature that will be especially pertinent for folks who are on the road all the time. Look for our full review in the next few days.

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.

B&N CEO Willian Lynch made sure to note the Nook tablet’s superior (fully laminated) display isn’t the only feature that is “better” than the Amazon Kindle Fire. He also touted the fact that the Nook tablet offers almost twice the RAM, along with in-store support that just isn’t possible with Amazon.

The 7-inch Nook Tablet looks much like a thinner (less than a pound) and lighter Color, but has innards that couldn’t be more different. Under the hood you’ll find a dual-core 1GHz processor courtesy of Texas Instruments, along with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (including a microSD slot supporting up to a 32GB card). When Nook cloud isn’t available, all that storage will certainly come in handy. But that’s not to say that Nook cloud won’t be involved — the new Nook tablet has the same Nook cloud support you’ve grown accustomed to.

But the real differentiator between this and the Kindle Fire will be the amount of content available, which B&N contends should be no trouble. The book seller touts 2.5 million books, thousands of apps, and deals with Hulu Plus and Netflix for our video lovers. Oh, and speaking of video, the tablet also supports video playback in full 1080p HD, although the Netflix app will only play video in 720p.

All those books and videos galore mean strong battery life is a must — luckily B&N promises at least 11 hours. Past that, there are plenty of other fun features to keep things interesting, including “Read & Record,” which lets parents record children’s stories so that kids can have their parents voice reading them to sleep at times when parent and child can’t necessarily be together. Angry Birds is also in tow.

The Nook tablet will begin to arrive in stores at the beginning of next week for $249. Meanwhile the rest of the Nook line is getting some price drops: the Nook color has been dropped down to $199, and the more basic Nook Simple Touch has gone from $139 to $99.

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).

If I were a betting man, I’d wager quite a bit on these predictions. However, if you’re currently in the book sales racket – from publisher to used bookstore owner, I’d be very worried. The time to pivot is now and it’s clearly already happening. While I will miss the creak of the Village Bookshop’s old church floor, the calm of Crescent City books, and the crankiness of the Provincetown Bookshop, the time has come to move on.

2013 – EBook sales surpass all other book sales, even used books. EMagazines begin cutting into paper magazine sales.
2014 – Publishers begin “subsidized” e-reader trials. Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers will attempt to create hardware lockins for their wares. They will fail.
2015 – The death of the Mom and Pops. Smaller book stores will use the real estate to sell coffee and Wi-Fi. Collectable bookstores will still exist in the margins.
2016 – Lifestyle magazines as well as most popular Conde Nast titles will go tablet-only.
2018 – The last Barnes & Noble store converts to a cafe and digital access point.
2019 – B&N and Amazon’s publishing arms – including self-pub – will dwarf all other publishing.
2019 – The great culling of the publishers. Smaller houses may survive but not many of them. The giants like Random House and Penguin will calve their smaller houses into e-only ventures. The last of the “publisher subsidized” tablet devices will falter.
2020 – Nearly every middle school to college student will have an e-reader. Textbooks will slowly disappear.
2023 – Epaper will make ereaders as thin as a few sheets of paper.
2025 – The transition is complete even in most of the developing world. The book is, at best, an artifact and at worst a nuisance. Book collections won’t disappear – hold-outs will exist and a subset of readers will still print books – but generally all publishing will exist digitally.

[Image: Blend Images/Shutterstock]

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.

Everything we’ve previously reported on the hardware remains the same. It will be a 7-inch backlit display tablet that looks similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook. Gdgt’s Ryan Block was able to dig up a bit more about the connection. Apparently, the Kindle Fire looks like a PlayBook because it was designed and built by the same original design manufacturer (ODM), Quanta. Even though Amazon has their own team dedicated to Kindle design and development, Lab 126, they wanted to get the Fire out there in time for this holiday season so they outsourced most of it as a shortcut.

Block’s sources seem very wary of this shortcut move. But having played with a DVT model myself, I can assure you that it’s better than the PlayBook because the software is better and, more importantly, the content available is much better. Amazon has built their own custom version of Android (that looks nothing like Android) and it utilizes their own Android Appstore. While that store doesn’t offer all the apps found in Google’s Android Market, Amazon has been rounding up the big app makers to get them on board for the Fire launch, I’m told.

Amazon has also been inking last-minute deals with the likes of Fox for movies and TV shows through their streaming video service which will be a key part of the Fire. And they have several publishers on board for magazine offerings, as Peter Kafka reports today. The Fire will rely heavily on Amazon’s MP3 service and, of course, the Kindle bookstore.

One thing I wasn’t sure about when I saw the device was if there would be an email client. I didn’t see one, but I thought maybe I missed it. Turns out there won’t be one included by default. Instead, you’ll be able to get one through the Appstore, or you can use the browser.

Another thing I wasn’t sure about was the chip inside of the device. I’ve now learned it’s a TI dual-core OMAP chip. This is the same chip used inside many newer Android devices. The PlayBook also uses it. I’m not sure what the clock-speed of the CPU will be, but I’d guess 1.2 GHz. This will make it significantly faster than the rival Nook Color, which uses a single core 800 MHz OMAP.

But…

Sources also suggest that Barnes & Noble is on the verge of launching the Nook Color 2 next month. In fact, that may play into Amazon’s timing here. They’re announcing the device well over a month before it will be available. Sources suggest that the Nook Color 2 will feature a 1.2 GHz OMAP chip, with a focus on displaying multimedia content better. There will also be a focus on streaming content and a big increase in the number of apps available, we’re told.

The Nook Color 2 will also be built on top of Gingerbread, Android 2.3, we hear. That would put it ahead of the Kindle Fire, which is believed to be based on Android 2.1. Again, neither of them look anything like Android, but the APIs available are key when it comes to the Android version.

And then there’s the issue of the price. While the Nook Color 2 is expected to retail for the same $250 that the current Nook Color does (and the original one may drop to $200), the pricing of the Kindle Fire is a bit of a mystery right now. Originally, we were told it would be the same $250. But there have also been whispers floating around that it could be $300.

We also originally heard that Amazon Prime would be included, as a big enticement for would-be buyers. That may be off the table for now as well — but it’s not yet clear. It’s possible Amazon will release one version with Prime included for $300 and a version without it for $250. Getting Amazon Prime for $50 would still be a deal, since it’s normally $79 for the year.

That’s all for now. All will be revealed on Wednesday. Below, the excellent mockup my colleague Greg made based on what I saw.

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.

What are these new devices? Nate at The Digital Reader posits that the Smart Touch is a 6-inch Nook Touch while the Encore is a 7-inch Nook Color. Aside from the fact that the Acclaim is also a shuttered games company, we know very little about the new devices. All of these products should hit in Q4 and given Amazon’s race to build an Android reader, they can’t come too soon. The Nook Color and the Nook Touch are both excellent devices but the Color is a bit dated in these days of retina screens and Honeycomb. A strong refresh should keep B&N’s momentum going for the next few months.

I’ve put feelers out but thanks to Nate for his great scoop and read up more on his findings over at the Digital Reader.

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.

The increased Nook distribution comes as Amazon is expected to unveil a completely new line of Kindle readers, which will likely hit the same Radio Shack stores slightly after the Nook gets comfortable. But even with new goods coming from Amazon, an additional 3,000 more retail locations is a timely win for Barnes & Noble. With the huge Christmas season just ramping up, the Nook readers will hit the de facto mall electronic store just in time.

The Kindle recently hit Radio Shack stores back in June. With the addition of the Nook line, Radio Shack joins the exclusive club of retailers to offer both of the popular ereaders.

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.

Do you need to use Titanium to get onto the Nook? No, but it helps. Titanium apps will be fast-tracked onto the Nook app store, a deal that should convince at least some of Titaniums 200,000 devs to port their programs over to the reader. B&N will still support their own developer platform .

Appcelerator writes:

Appcelerator developers will now be able to quickly deploy and offer their apps through Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Store reaching millions of digital customers. Titanium developers will enjoy expedited submission of their apps for the NOOK Developer program. Titanium developers’ submissions will be automatically qualified and fast-tracked for review. Appcelerator has also updated its reference applications, documentation, and platform to easily integrate the NOOK Color SDK into Titanium Studio, Appcelerator’s enterprise-grade IDE used by over 1.5 million web developers.

In general this is an interesting and smart move for B&N. Titanium is free to “indie” devs and fairly inexpensive for professionals to use the plaforms ($199/dev/moth is the basic pro package). It also allows lots of data-centric apps to arrive on the Nook faster than they would normally, especially apps designed to supply feeds of data from various cloud sources. While you probably won’t program the next Angry Birds with Titanium, you will be able to get your blog or news source on the Nook faster than you would without the partnership.

Fast-tracking these apps also helps improve the density of apps on the Nook marketplace, and important consideration that has thus far plagued the Playbook and the Touchpad. In the end, more apps means a more vibrant app market. Although the partnership doesn’t apply to hardcore hax0rs, this partnership allows folks who may have avoided the Nook to give it a second glance.

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.

First of all, before every commenter asks, no, sadly, I don’t have any pictures to share. That was the one condition of me getting this information. So instead you’ll have to rely on my prose to draw a picture of the device in your head. Or you can just look at a BlackBerry PlayBook — because it looks very similar in terms of form-factor.

So here’s what I know and what I saw:

Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, I believe the reports that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like the iPad uses) are accurate. This will be the first Kindle with a full-color screen. And yes, it is back-lit. There is no e-ink to be found anywhere on this device.

Earlier this week, reports suggested that a 7-inch Amazon tablet could be released in October, with a larger, 10-inch version to follow next year. That’s somewhat accurate. As of right now, Amazon’s only definitive plan is to release this 7-inch Kindle tablet and they’re targeting the end of November to do that. The version I saw was a DVT (Design Verification Testing) unit. These have started floating around the company. It’s ready, they’re just tweaking the software now. If it’s not in production yet, it will be very soon.

Originally, Amazon had planned to launch a 7-inch and a 10-inch tablet at the same time. But that plan changed this summer. Now they’re betting everything on the 7-inch. If it’s a hit, they will release the more expensive 10-inch tablet in Q1 2012.

So how much will the 7-inch Kindle cost? $250.

Yes, Amazon has been able to trim the cost of the device to half of the entry-level iPad. And it will be the same price as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color, which this will very obviously compete with directly. Both have 7-inch color touch screens. Both run Android.

And this is where things get really interesting. As anticipated, Amazon has forked Android to build their own version for the Kindle. Simply put: it looks nothing like the Android you’re used to seeing.

The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. The main screen is a carousel that looks like Cover Flow in iTunes which displays all the content you have on the device. This includes books, apps, movies, etc. Below the main carousel is a dock to pin your favorite items in one easy-to-access place. When you turn the device horizontally, the dock disappears below the fold.

Above the dock is the status bar (time, battery, etc) and this doubles as a notification tray. When apps have updates, or when new subscriptions are ready for you to view, they appear here. The top bar shows “YOUR NAME’s Kindle” and then the number of notifications you have in bright orange. It looks quite nice.

There are no physical buttons on the surface of the device. You bring up a lower navigation menu by tapping the screen once. This can take you back home, etc.

But the key for Amazon is just how deeply integrated all of their services are. Amazon’s content store is always just one click away. The book reader is a Kindle app (which looks similar to how it does on Android and iOS now). The music player is Amazon’s Cloud Player. The movie player is Amazon’s Instant Video player. The app store is Amazon’s Android Appstore.

Google’s Android Market is nowhere to be found. In fact, no Google app is anywhere to be found. This is Android fully forked. My understanding is that the Kindle OS was built on top of some version of Android prior to 2.2. And Amazon will keep building on top of that of that over time. In other words, this won’t be getting “Honeycomb” or “Ice Cream Sandwich” — or if it does, users will never know it because that will only be the underpinnings of the OS. Any visual changes will be all Amazon.

They are not working with Google on this. At all.

There is a web browser (of course), and while it’s styled a bit to match the Kindle UI, it looks pretty much the same as the Android’s WebKit browser. Yes, it has tabs! And yes, Google Search is still the default (the Kindle also has its own search tool to find content on your device).

Overall, the UI of this Kindle felt very responsive. You can flick through the carousel seamlessly. This is something Amazon has apparently been working on quite a bit, I’m told. And they continue to. Some of the page-turning touch mechanics still needed a bit of work in the version I used.

I believe the visual web reading app Pulse will be bundled with the Kindle. A game like Angry Birds may be as well. Again, it uses Amazon’s Android Appstore, so all of the content accepted into that store will play well on this device. Apps, games, content, you name it. Amazon creating their own app store is starting to make a lot more sense, and looks potentially very smart (as anticipated).

A few more bits about the hardware:

I believe it is running on a single-core chip (though I’m not 100 percent sure). My understanding is that the 10-inch version, if it comes, will have a dual-core chip.

I also believe the device only has 6 GB of internal storage. The idea is that this will be more of a “cloud device” for things like music and movies. The storage is meant for storing books and apps There were a few references to an SD card expansion, but I couldn’t find a slot on the hardware itself.

This initial version of the device will be WiFi-only. Amazon is supposedly working with carriers to possibly product 3G-enabled versions (as they have with their other Kindles), but that won’t be the case at launch.

I’m not sure what the battery life is like (I only played with it for about an hour), but I imagine it is very good and in line with other tablets — 10 hours or so.

The back of the device is rubbery — again, it’s very similar to the PlayBook (it’s black as well). The power button is underneath if you’re holding it vertically (which is a bit odd — but it’s obviously to the side if you’re holding it horizontally). There’s a micro-USB port (presumably for powering the device as well). The speakers are of the top of the device (again, if it’s being held vertically).

There is no camera.

So why will people buy this device instead of a Nook Color? Well, beyond the deep Amazon services integration, there will be two other reasons, I believe. First, Amazon is going to promote the hell out of this thing on Amazon.com. Second, the plan right now is to give buyers a free subscription to Amazon Prime.

The service, which Amazon currently sells for $79 a year, gives users access things like free unlimited two-day shipping, and no minimum purchases for free shipping. More importantly for this product, Prime users get access to Amazon’s Instant Video service. There will be more Kindle-related perks, I imagine.

As far as the existing e-ink-based Kindles, all I’ve heard is that they’ll continue to co-exist with this new tablet (though the DX may or may not stick around). They’ll simply be the low-end, low-cost Kindles, whereas this new one will be the high-end one (at least until the 10-inch version comes out, if it does). One source said it doesn’t seem likely that Amazon is going to release a touch-screen e-ink Kindle, like the new Nook, anytime soon. But none of that is confirmed, it’s simply speculation based on the emphasis on getting this new tablet to market.

Oh and one more thing: Amazon has been working on a multi-touch screen/e-ink hybrid tablet device. But that’s nowhere near completion, I’m told. So for now, this new Kindle will have to do.

That’s all for now. I suspect even more information (and pictures) will start leaking out soon — again, the new Kindle is very close to being done. Not only is the device real, from what I’ve seen, it’s solid. I suspect it will be on many people’s holiday wish-list this year.

Update: It’s called the Kindle Fire.

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.

Nook, Kindle, and Kobo now have no access to the web-based bookstore and you can no longer create accounts in the app. Only users with current accounts and books on file in the various stores can read them and book purchasing. For example, as of today, users of the Nook Kids app are no longer able to access the Barnes & Noble web store while Kobo users cannot create accounts or buy books from the app.

You’ll also notice that the Google Books app is now missing from the iTunes store, presumably for either a full overhaul or (and I doubt this) out of spite.

I’m of two minds when it comes to moves like these in the App world. On the one hand, magazines like The Daily (remember them?) and, more pertinently, the New Yorker prove that inside app sales and subscriptions works quite adequately and allows everyone – from the content providers to the “carrier,” in this case Apple, to maintain a revenue stream necessary for the continuation of our cultural heritage.

But here’s where things get a little rough: Apple is basically saying that it’s our way or the highway and those who don’t like it can drop off of iOS entirely or rededicate their efforts to HTML5-based readers that may or may not be superior to app-based systems. Again, this is Apple’s device and Apple’s rules but the freedom-loving self-publisher in me says “Hey, Amazon already takes their cut, why do I have to risk them taking a bigger cut because of this goofiness? And why do I have to settle for a potentially sub-par reading experience because Apple wants 30 cents out of my buck?”

As someone who despises the current publishing industry, I’m glad Apple’s cracking down on folks who have had it too good for too long. However, I worry that the author and the reader and not the publisher will be the ones to pay in the end.

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.

You can also just grab the 2GB card, erase it, and put your own books bought on your previous reader on there, which is what I suspect they’re really trying to offer here.