Hey, did you hear? Barnes and Noble launched a new ereader! Then again, it was kind of hard to avoid Barnes and Noble’s official launch of its new ereader, nook (and no, I didn’t screw up the capitalization – B&N’s marketing team has gone all e.e. cummings on us). It was the worst kept secret ever, leading to every tech reporter and his brother scrambling to be the first one to deliver the delicious device details.
Out of the gate, there are the obvious comparisons to competing e-reader devices. The lead competitor, of course, is the Amazon Kindle – and the nook makes some impressive advances:
- Built-in WiFi: The nook not only has a 3G wireless connection, it also has WiFi, which will allow nook users to tap into the free WiFi at Barnes and Noble locations. An interesting attempt to leverage B&N’s major differentiator from Amazon.com – physical stores.
- Person-to-person lending: The nook’s LendMe feature allows a user to share a book with another nook user. While this feature overcomes one of the challenges with ebooks, it appears this capability will be publisher-controllable. One has to wonder how many publishers will choose to enable this feature, and whether lack of LendMe support will be visible to customers prior to purchasing titles.
- SD slot: In addition to the 2GB of built-in memory, the nook also has an SD slot to allow the user to add additional memory. I’m not sure this is a real advantage, given the relatively small size of ebooks.
- LCD touchscreen: A nice way to enable input (via a virtual keyboard), and browse titles. Otherwise, I’m not sure this is really an advance – I have to wonder about the ramification on the device’s battery life.
- Android-based: As previously rumoured, the nook is build on Google’s Android operating system. This is hardly a compelling purchase criteria; however, it’s interesting to see Google’s new operating system branch out beyond mobile phones.
If you’re not sick of the nook yet, head on over to Gizmodo’s photos of the nook.
These advances may add a few more reasons to love ebooks, leading to the predicted e-reader Christmas-season showdown. It’s clear that (regardless of what Barnes and Noble may say) Barnes and Noble is still the follower in the market, behind Amazon.com. It will be interesting to see if this move allows Barnes and Noble to vault ahead of Sony, who’s still busy picking Amazon’s arrows out of its back.
The rumors are true: Barnes and Noble is getting back into the e-book business. In an interesting move, the company is not only partnering with Plastic Logic but also adopting an “every device” strategy that will allow them to target multiple devices with the same book offerings. The company is kicking off this effort with B&N eReader software, which the company is making available for the iPhone, as well as a number of other platforms (including the Mac, PC, and BlackBerry).
The company has also released a B&N Bookstore iPhone App, which allows users to find additional store and book information. Of particular interest is the feature that allows a user to find more information on a book by simply taking a photo of the cover – a feature that is eerily similar to that offered by SnapTell. The same SnapTell that Amazon.com recently bought.
But the comparisons don’t end there: the availability of the eReader software mirrors Amazon.com’s strategy with its Kindle for iPhone application, as well its acquisition of Lexcycle, makers of Stanza (a popular iPhone and desktop e-book reader application). And all of Barnes and Noble’s bestseller e-book titles will be priced at $9.99 to compete head-to-head with Amazon (and thus add to the downward price pressure Amazon.com has exerted on publishers).
Clearly, the rush to dominate the e-book market is afoot. The only question is: who’s next to join the party?
And the hits keep on coming in the looming war between booksellers and publishers: Eslite Books, Taiwan’s largest book store operator is preparing to enter the e-book arena.
The announcement shows the global e-book trend continues to grow and is attracting a bigger following in Chinese, the most widely used language in Taiwan. The service Eslite and Far EasTone plan to establish is similar to Amazon.com’s Kindle and e-book store. Far EasTone will also benefit from wireless downloads of e-books and other content to be made for e-readers.
Details are still thin on the ground, but it’s clear that Eslite Books is reading from the same playbook as Borders, and Barnes and Noble: find a partner to build the technology, and transition part of the business from physical sales to digital sales.
In what appears to be a bid to accelerate the growth of its Kindle business, Amazon.com dropped the price of its 6″ Kindle 2 device to $299 today. This brings the Kindle’s price in line with devices from competitors such as the Sony; however, you won’t hear Amazon.com’s spokeperson talking about that in their statement describing the reasons for the price decrease:
“We’ve been able to increase the volume of Kindles we’re manufacturing and decrease the cost of doing so … whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we pass the savings along to our customers.”
Sure….because extracting less money from customers is what all companies try to do. Will this be enough to lure customers to the Kindle, despite the flagging economy? Only time will tell. [Amazon via Gizmodo]
The e-book industry is shaping up quickly: last week, Borders UK announced its own e-book reader, developed in conjunction with with Elonex. They join Barnes and Noble (who is rumored to be releasing a device) and Amazon.com as a new breed of bookseller/publisher that is attempting to avoid suffering the same fate as the music industry:
The moves by Borders and in the future by Barnes & Nobles is also attempt to stave off a fate that music retail stores have faced as records went digital, says Epps. Still the transition is unlikely to be easy.
“It’s not a pretty picture right now for brick-and-mortar retailers,” says Epps. “E-books sales are growing but they can’t nearly bring in the same kind of revenue as physical books do,” she says.
Wired’s analysis of the situation missed one set of industry players: the publishers. While all of the e-reader vendors are currently dependent on publishers to provide content, that may change. Services, such as Amazon.com’s Digital Text Platform, could allow authors to sidestep the traditional publisher route either by publishing through the device seller, or publishing on their own site in standard formats (such as epub or PDF).
Which begs the question: when every bookstore is effectively a publisher, and authors have the ability to publish either through a device or directly, will there be any room left for publishers in the industry? It may end up that the publishers are the ones who should be worried about suffering the fate of the music industry, not the booksellers.
In a sinister sign of things to come, MediaPost has discovered Amazon.com patent applications for in-book advertising in ebooks. The discovery has sparked speculation amongst several news outlets that Amazon.com may be planning to introduce ad-supported Kindles as one way of battling the cost of the device as a barrier to adoption.
The two patent applications (available here and here) contain somewhat absurd justifications for this technology:
Indeed, most content providers that host “free” Internet sites are typically supported by advertisements. Of course, in regard to out-of-print or rare books, they typically do not include advertisements and, if they do, the advertisements are out of date and inapplicable. However, as disclosed below, as part of printing documents in an on-demand fashion, the on-demand printed content provides the opportunity to incorporate advertisements, as well as other subject matter, in an on-demand printed document.
So for all you Sherlock Holmes fans outraged at having wade through back copies of The Strand filled with ads for technologically inferior girdles, don’t worry, Amazon.com’s going to make everything alright.
Does Amazon honestly expect these patents to get issued? Or that people really will put up with invasive advertising in books just to get a device? Maybe. However, a cursory glance at the applications indicates there’s not much difference Amazon’s proposed technology, and the in-PDF advertising technology Adobe and Yahoo! launched a couple of years ago…and recently discontinued.