Barnes & Noble working on a new Nook, finally going international

Barnes & Noble is reportedly working on a new e-reader device that could help the book publisher take on both Amazon and the international market.

Barnes & Noble’s line of Nook e-reader devices, which first debuted in 2009, are helping the company boost its digital sales of e-books. The Nook also helps Barnes & Noble compete against online retail giant Amazon, which has its own line of Kindle e-readers, as well as a healthy lead … Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble explores spinning off Nook business

Amid record digital sales and floundering physical sales, Barnes & Noble announced today that it plans to explore spinning off its Nook and e-book business.

Barnes & Noble is in the precarious position of having its losing physical bookstore business dragging down its growing e-reader/tablet and e-book business. Because of that setup, the company’s financial picture is ugly. The company just cut its sales forecast for fiscal 2012, which ends April 30, to between $7 … Continue Reading

Zynga launches Words With Friends on the Nook e-book reader

Zynga launched its first game for the Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader today, Words With Friends.

The wildly popular Scrabble clone will debut as an app for the Nook tablet today. The move is one more attempt by Zynga to reach non-gamers on non-traditional gaming devices. Zynga wants to expand the mass market for games and the Nook is one more platform for that.

Zynga is dependent on Facebook for more than 94 percent … Continue Reading

Condé Nast adds its entire lineup of magazines to the Nook

Publishing giant Condé Nast is making its entire lineup of magazines available on Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet and Nook Color, the company announced today.

The news follows Condé Nast’s success with digital sales on Apple’s new Newsstands platform. Previously, the company only sold GQ, Glamour, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker on the Nook’s Newsstand. By the end of November, however, Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Brides, Condé … Continue Reading

Hands-on with the Nook Tablet, and a chat with B&N’s Nook CTO (video)

Let me make it clear up front: The Nook Tablet looks and feels exactly like last year’s Nook Color. But Barnes & Noble is hoping that its beefed up hardware will make it a worthy contender against Amazon’s upcoming Kindle Fire tablet.

At Barnes & Noble’s launch event for the tablet in New York City today, I was able to get a bit of hands-on time with the Nook Tablet. I also chatted with the … Continue Reading

The $249 Nook Tablet : Like the Nook Color, but built for HD media

‘Tis the season of cheap tablets. Today Barnes & Noble announced its Kindle Fire competitor, simply called the Nook Tablet.

The company announced the $249 tablet today at a press event at its Union Square store in New York City, but as is often the case these days, details of the Nook Tablet were leaked last week, leaving little excitement for today’s reveal.

The Nook Tablet looks exactly like the Nook Color — but that’s … Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble’s $249 Nook Tablet to challenge Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Barnes & Noble is taking on Amazon and its Kindle Fire tablet by expanding its lineup of Nook e-readers to include a lighter, faster, 7-inch color touchscreen device called the Nook Tablet, according to documents obtained by Engadget.

The Nook Tablet, which will retail for $249, closely resembles the Nook Color but has beefed-up specifications. It comes with a dual core processor, 16 GB of storage — twice that of both the Nook Color and … Continue Reading

Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iPad: Which tablet or e-reader should you buy?

Amazon’s announcement of the Kindle Fire today threw down the gauntlet for both tablets and e-book readers. At just $199, it’s not much more expensive than previous e-readers, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than competing tablets.

In fact, you might be asking yourself: Why would I want a drab, monochrome E Ink reader when for a little bit more money I could get an awesome 7-inch tablet?

Conversely, why would I spend … Continue Reading

Should Apple buy Barnes & Noble? (Poll)

Apple may be interested in purchasing the book giant Barnes & Noble, a flimsy source tells the mobile site Boy Genius Report.

The news itself seems ridiculous and is most likely false, but it’s an interesting thought experiment. Let’s take a look at the wisdom and stupidity of Apple purchasing B&N, and feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts in our poll below.

Apple has $76.2 billion in cash, the company reported last … Continue Reading

How Sony blew the chance to make a Kindle killer (updated)

Sony’s planned August update to its Reader line of e-book devices is the company’s last shot at reclaiming the market it pioneered in 2006. But it may already be too late.

Despite having a multi-year head-start, Sony’s Reader has lagged behind Amazon and its wildly successful Kindle for years. Even the last-generation Sony Readers — which added features that the Kindle doesn’t have, like a touchscreen interface — have failed to catch on much with … Continue Reading

Harry Potter e-books no longer a fantasy with Pottermore website

Get your wands and robes ready. In a much-anticipated move, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced Thursday a new website called Pottermore that will let Potter fans interact with each other and provide an online spot to purchase Harry Potter e-books.

The Potter franchise’s move online is no surprise. The Harry Potter book series is one of the best-selling in history, with hundreds of millions of copies sold.  The books have already been made into … Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble's new $139 Nook is simple, touch-friendly

Just a month after releasing a major update to the Nook Color, Barnes & Noble announced today a smaller, more simplified version of the original black-and-white Nook. At $139, the device will compete better with the Amazon Kindle, which retails for the same price with its Wi-Fi only version, and the just-released $129 touch-enabled Kobo e-reader.

Like the latest Kindle, the new Nook has a 6-inch E Ink Pearl display, but that’s where the similarities … Continue Reading

Is Barnes & Noble worth $1 billion? Liberty Media thinks so

Liberty Media proposed a deal late Thursday to buy the largest U.S. book retailer Barnes & Noble for $1.02 billion through the purchase of the company’s stock at $17 per share, according to Reuters.

The offer may seem high for an ailing fleet of retail stores that are seeing declines in print book sales, but Barnes & Noble’s Nook tablet and online marketplace could be very valuable to the right buyer.

Barnes & Noble announced … Continue Reading

New York Times launches digital subscriptions: Are e-readers an afterthought?

After announcing its new digital subscription plan a couple of weeks ago and launching the plan in Canada, The New York Times is now expanding its paywall to readers everywhere. The strategy is very device focused (you have to purchase a mobile or tablet app; you can’t buy website access on its own), but there’s one class of device that’s curiously absent — e-readers like Amazon.com’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

The only mention … Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble to discontinue Nook 3G?

Barnes and Noble will discontinue the Nook 3G, according to “hard evidence from within B&N” collected by Engadget. Stores have been told to refrain from filling bulk orders, the site reports.

Cnet’s David Carnoy is skeptical of the story, labeling it a “rumor,” which, with “hard evidence” being the only source cited, it is. But further, Carnoy writes, “Amazon offers both a 3G/Wi-Fi Kindle and Wi-Fi-only Kindle, and Barnes & Noble would most likely continue … Continue Reading

Can book retailer Borders survive without its own e-reader?

Book and media retailer Borders announced today that it will hold off on paying some publishers in order to buy time and reorganize its debt amid a year of weak sales in its brick and mortar stores in the era of digital distribution.

The company has seen declining sales in books, movies and music since electronic book readers emerged and consumers started to use digital distribution marketplaces like iTunes. Borders’ revenue was down 17.5 percent … Continue Reading

Amazon turns on Kindle ebook lending

As promised back in October, Amazon has just introduced the ability to lend Kindle ebooks, opening up a world of opportunity for Kindle users.

The feature, which is clearly aped from the rival Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader, lets Kindle users lend ebooks for a 14-day period. Obviously, while the book is lent out, the original owner won’t be able to read it. Amazon also says that it’s up to the book publisher or rights … Continue Reading

Google launches ebook store with world's largest library of titles

Is this the end of Amazon’s ebook reign? Google is launching its new open ebook store today, simply called Google eBooks, with over 3 million titles, in a bid to take on the ebook world dominated by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple.

As we reported previously, Google’s ebook venture will be more open than its competition. Consumers will be able to browse and search Google’s enormous ebook library, and they can read ebooks on … Continue Reading

Google to rock the ebook world with "Editions" store soon

Google’s long talked-about ebook store, Google Editions, is set to debut by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The store was initially supposed to launch this past summer, but sources close to the company say that it only recently cleared some legal and technical hurdles. Now Google is gearing up to launch Editions by the end of the year in the US and by first quarter 2011 worldwide, according to Google … Continue Reading

Amazon now lets you gift Kindle ebooks to anyone

I’m not sure what took so long, but Amazon today finally announced the ability to gift Kindle ebooks to anyone — just as you would any other product or service from Amazon’s online store.

The company says that the Kindle is “the most gifted item in the history of Amazon.com” but is still mum on specific sales numbers. While this announcement may help Amazon sell even more Kindles, the company stresses that no Kindle is … Continue Reading