Barnes & Noble Doubles Down on the Nook
By Harry McCracken | Friday, July 30, 2010 at 7:21 am
Amazon.com’s Kindle may have the highest profile of any e-reader, but Barnes & Noble seems to be pretty darn serious about its Nook. The New York Times reports that the company is planning to make space for Nook boutiques in its superstores, dedicating a thousand feet of floor space near their cafés to Nooks, Nook accessories, and in-person and video demonstrations.
B&N plans to free up room for Nooks in part by shrinking space devoted to CDs; in this era, you gotta think that it probably would be deemphasizing sales of music on shiny discs no matter what. It says it’s not going to carry fewer dead-tree books.
The move presumably means that B&N is in the hardware business for the long haul and already has future generations of Nooks in the works. The first-generation Nook got off to a somewhat bumpy start–its software was slow and buggy, and some promised features weren’t immediately available–but the company has improved it through multiple software updates. It’s also knocked the price down to $199 and introduced a $149 model with Wi-Fi but no 3G connection.
Barnes & Noble also offers e-reader software for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PC, and Mac, and it powers the e-book stores for devices from Nook competitors such as Pandigital. The Times doesn’t say whether the new boutiques will spotlight any of these other ways to read digital books.
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July 30th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
who's used one?
July 30th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
It's a nice unit. I have seen the new kiosks and indeed B&N is very serious about selling them. There is a dedicated sales rep that has had extensive training on the unit and how to sell it. I have to say it's a nice piece of tech that I plan on purchasing for my mom for christmas.
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:10 am
Considering that the only reason I'd step into a B&N is to browse/buy "shiny disks", I'd say this strategy has "FAIL" stamped on its forehead.
I've used a Nook. They are better than Kindles (easier to find your way back to where you were), but that's a pretty low bar to beat. All of these E-ink experiments will end up collecting dust in the back of a Sharper Image store in the near future.
August 16th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
My wife has a Nook. It's a great little device. Plus, you can read books from her library's e-book co-op, listennj.com, so she can get newer e-books for free for a limited time. Not bad.
August 17th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
tzinka tu maiz