Through Tuesday: buy a NOOK, NOOK HD, get a $20 B&N card

Through Tuesday: buy a NOOK, NOOK HD, get a $20 B&N card

See? We’re not all about the Kindle.

I do recommend the Kindle over the NOOK, partially do to the difference in Customer Service. For example, you can “return” a Kindle store book within seven days of purchase for a refund…you can even do it yourself.

Barnes & Noble does not allow the return of an e-book at any time for any reason.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/help/cds2.asp?PID=8121

However, I do think it’s a decent device, and if you are already in the B&N ecosystem, I want to let you know about this deal.

They repeatedly say (both in an e-mail I got, and online) that this deal is for

“… customers who purchase NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ online at www.nook.com using a MasterCard^® card will receive a free $20 Barnes & Noble Gift Card, along with free shipping, while supplies last”

Note that it says a NOOk HD and a NOOK HD+. My guess it that they intend that to say a NOOK HD or a NOOK HD+…not that you have to buy both tablets.

However, the details online definitely say “and”.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/email/nav.asp?PID=45793

As somebody who has done a lot of work with Excel and with databases, I know people get “and” and “or” confused frequently.

Let’s say you want a book by Stephen King in e-book form. You would search for “author is Stephen King” and “format is e-book”.

If you searched for “author is Stephen King” or “format is e-book”, you would see all Stephen King books regardless of whether or not they were in e-book form, and all e-books, regardless of whether or not they were by Stephen King.

That causes all sorts of problems in reports when people do it incorrectly.

I’ve asked Barnes & Noble for a clarification.

Anyway, if you have a Mastercard, you want to shop online (not in the physical store), and you want to buy a NOOK tablet (um…or maybe it’s if you want to buy NOOK tablets), you can get a $20 gift card today or tomorrow.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Round up #124: iPad Mini helps Fire’s sales, no NOOK on Surface

Round up #124: iPad Mini helps Fire’s sales, no NOOK on Surface

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

iPad Mini like spinach to Kindle Fire’ s Popeye

“Kindle Killer” fans, lose one turn.

Amazon told

All Things D

that Wednesday, October 24th, was the biggest sales day to date for the  Kindle Fire HD.

The day before, Apple had announced their long-awaited iPad Mini.

Is it reasonable to conclude that the announcement of the Mini helped Kindle Fire sales?

I think so. I suppose its possible that every day for the Fire has been the best sales day to date, and that it would have been even higher if the Mini had not been announced, but I doubt that’s the case.

Why would the biggest brand in the world announcing a potentially competing product help your product?

My guess is that a lot of people were holding off on buying a smaller tablet until they saw what Apple was going to do.

They saw it; they didn’t like it.

The clearest negative is price, as I addressed in this earlier post. At $329, it’s just too much compared to the $199 Kindle Fire HD or $159 Kindle Fire SD. Comparing it to the former, which is the more comparable model, it’s like Amazon has a $20,000 car…and Apple is selling a $33,000 car. You can certainly sell cars at $33,000, but they better have a whole more going for them…and I don’t think, in a fair comparison, that the iPad Mini does.

While Apple is certainly likely to pile up the cash in the near future, this move has people wondering about the longer term:

Forbes: “Tim Cook Dumps Steve Jobs’ Product Strategies With iPad Mini”

No NOOK app on the Microsoft Surface

I don’t know…don’t you think that after Microsoft gave Barnes & Noble $300 million, Barnes & Noble could have spared less than one percent of that to make a NOOK app for the Surface?

This has people scratching their heads:

Wall Street Journal article

I have no doubt that B&N will have a lovely app and bookstore for Windows 8 and the Surface tablet soon…but meanwhile, all those people who decided to go with a Surface will get hooked on Kindle. It’s like showing up to the World Series three innings late; it doesn’t mean you can’t win, but…

Supreme Court to hear First Sale Doctrine case on Monday

Back in 1908 (which is a long time ago, but more than a century after the founding of the USA), the US Supreme Court heard a case. A publisher, Bobbs-Merrill, had put a notice on one of their books that it could not be sold for under $1.

The R.H. Macy department store sold it for eighty-nine cents.

The publisher asserted that violated its copyright.

The case got all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the retailer.

FindLaw text of the decision

Copyright did not extend to control of a copy after it was initially sold. The rightsholder still holds rights to the book itself (what the author wrote); just because you bought a copy of a paperbook doesn’t give you the right to turn it into a movie or make more copies and sell them. However, that copy you buy is yours to control; sell it; give it away; burn it.

This was made part of US copyright law in 1976:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf

Section 109 reads in part:

“§109 · Limitations on exclusive rights:
Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord
(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court may take up a case about the First Sale Doctrine, and in a lower court, the publisher has been upheld.

Here’s the basic thing:

Publishers may sell books for different prices in different markets around the world. That makes sense: the economies are different, distribution costs are different, and so on.

In the case at hand, a student bought textbooks overseas (or had people buy them) cheaply, then imported them to the USA and sold them here for a profit.

Washington Post article

There is a lot of speculation out there that, depending on the ruling, this could mean the end of used bookstores, the end of Netflix renting DVDs…heck, practically the end of garage sales.

I don’t think the Supreme Court is going to rule that broadly.

The argument by John Wiley & Sons, the publish is, I believe, that the First Sale  Doctrine does not apply to those books that they manufactured overseas.

That’s a narrow argument. The Supreme Court doesn’t have to say whether it should apply or not, just whether it does.

Go back to the part I quoted. Here’s the key phrase to me:

“…copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title” (emphasis added)

Those books abroad are not made under Title 17 of US law…so Section 109 doesn’t apply.

Essentially, the Court could do a few things, as I understand it:

• Let the lower court decision stand: the student who imported the books would owe the publisher money, and people would not be able to import copyrighted materials from overseas and sell them here if the copyright owner was here and did not give permission
• Overturn the lower court, meaning the student didn’t owe anything
• Say that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply any more…to anything

I think the bottom one is unlikely, but you never know.

If the first choice was made, you could see publishers move a lot more manufacturing overseas. Cutting out the used book market might certainly sound attractive to them, although no doubt some people have significant “discovery” through used books. For example, a person might get a book by a particular author for fifty cents at a garage sale, then go on to buy the author’s newest book for $20 from a bookstore.

If the First Sale Doctrine went away in the USA, hypothetically, the price of textbooks could come down. Supposedly, part of the reason they cost so much is that they are commonly resold several times.

I wouldn’t count on that, though.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

Trying to go netbook-less

I’m trying to make the transition to using my Kindle Fire HD and a Bluetooth keyboard to replace a netbook we own, so my Significant Other can get the “small laptop” back. I’ve monopolized it for a long time.

So far, the results are uneven. I can type on it just fine; better, in fact, than on our desktop, since the keyboard sits more comfortably.

The problem has been in copying and pasting, and launching things effectively.

I seem to have no problem copying anything, but getting it to paste into some boxes on the internet is hard. The biggest problem is that I can’t seem to paste where I want to paste effectively when writing a blogpost in WordPress.

I am, though, able to respond on the Kindle forums just fine…even pasting a URL, for example.

One negative is that I know I haven’t been quite as responsive to comments on this blog (although I think I’m still pretty fast when doing it).

I also have to take my hands off the keyboard to use the Fire to tap, say, a “post” button. I think I’ll be able to work out that part of the juggling; I’m hoping to find an effective keyboard way to do it.

I think when I have my larger screen Kindle Fire HD that will also be easier…it’s a tad small to see the 7″ when I’m typing away. I’m a touch typist, so I don’t have to look at it all the time, but I do need to see it sometimes.

What do you think? Will the Supremes overturn the First Sale Doctrine? If so, how does that affect the migration from paper (where people resell extensively) to e-books (where they don’t resale, generally). How big a misstep is the iPad Mini price (if you think it is one at all)? Was Barnes & Noble just behind a deadline, or is there something more fundamental happening? Does it mean anything that Microsoft didn’t hold the launch for them? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

New NOOKs: faster, lighter, bigger, and more personalized

New NOOKs: faster, lighter, bigger, and more personalized

“Now batting…from New York City, a 95-year veteran of bookselling who is still swinging for the fences, Barnes & Noble!”

Barnes & Noble announced today

Press Release

two new tablets, and the introduction is impressive.

They’ve done an excellent job in making these devices sound customer-aligned…territory Amazon tried to claim in its September 5th presser (press event).

Very simply, there aren’t wild innovations that people may not understand (X-Ray for Movies, “Immersion Reading”), but things that people clearly want (no ads, customizable screen savers*).

The specs (hardware specifications) will make the gear heads happy, at least for the features on which Barnes & Noble focuses…except for memory (see below).

This is one of the best product introductions I’ve seen.

Yes, I love my Kindle, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate other devices.

These aren’t Kindle Fire killers in my opinion…I do think there is room for both. However, I think this may move Barnes & Noble up in market share through the holiday season.

While Barnes & Noble and Amazon aren’t the only two players here (the market is merging in some ways), let’s take a look at this head to head. I’m going to talk about both reflective screen devices and the tablets. I compared the Kindles in an earlier post and if you are already settled that you want an Amazon device, that one will give you a good idea. In a similar way, I’m going to try to give you a sense of which Kindle or NOOK might best fit how you are going to use it.

Before I do, though, I want to say that Amazon’s Customer Service is a deciding factor for me in comparing the companies. Amazon allows the “return” of a Kindle store book in the first seven days after purchase for a refund: B&N doesn’t allow the return of NOOK Books at any time for any reason. Amazon has great Customer Service, and great involvement with their customers. I’ve never had a bad experience in a Barnes & Noble brick and mortar store, but I have had them online with them.

Note: Amazon gave me a Kindle Fire HD 7″, Dolby Audio, Dual-Band Wi-Fi, 16 GB and a Kindle Paperwhite 3G, 6″ High Resolution Display with Built-in Light, Free 3G + Wi-Fi – Includes Special Offers. That is not because I’m a blogger: it’s because of work that I do voluntarily on the Kindle forums to help other customers. I’m what they call a “Kindle Forum Pro”. That’s not a job, and I’m not paid by Amazon. They gave the devices to all of the Pros. While I’m grateful, I don’t think it’s particularly influenced my feelings about Amazon, or that it will affect this post…I liked them before.

Definitions

Reflective Screen Devices (RSDs): an EBR (E-Book Reader) which does not have lighting behind the image. RSDs are particularly good for long form reading, have a long battery life compared to a backlit device. They can be read easily in bright light, because you read them by light reflecting off of them (the same way you read a paperbook). The technology does not “refresh the screen” quickly enough to handle video. While they can play some games, their primary function is reading. The screens on the earlier models used a brand name technology called E Ink. RSDs currently do not do color images.

Tablet: a backlit device, similar in that way to a laptop, desktop, or SmartPhone. You read what is on the screen by a light coming from behind it. In bright light, they can be hard to read, because the light coming from behind the screen is competing with the light hitting the screen from the front (the sun, for example). Tablets can do full animation (meaning you can watch movies and TV shows, and play games that require animation). They can show many colors. They are good for visiting websites. The software is flexible, and you can install many types of “apps” on them. The battery charge life is much shorter than on an RSK: a day of full use will require a recharge.

The entry level RSD

If you just want to get an EBR (E-Book Reader), maybe your first one, or as an extra, or you just aren’t sure about the whole thing, Amazon owns this one with the Kindle (“Mindle”) with Special Offers. At $69 in the USA, it’s $30 cheaper than the cheapest NOOK. If you just want to read, and you don’t mind ads, it’s a good deal. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, and it doesn’t have audio (so no music, no audiobooks, no text-to-speech). You can get it without ads for $89, but that’s only $10 less than the…

Lowest priced touch screen

NOOK Simple Touch

Is it worth $30 more than the Mindle? If you want a touchscreen, yes, just looking at the hardware.  It also has a memory expansion slot, which many people want (you can use micro SD cards for more memory). If you don’t consider the companies, this is an easy to use $99 model.

“Glow” RSDs

Barnes & Noble established the naming on frontlighting for reflective screen devices, calling it a “GlowLight”. That means that you can turn on a light to read it in low light conditions, and still read it well in bright light. If you are okay with ads and special offers, Amazon gets in the cheapest at $119 with its Kindle Paperwhite wi-fi only. If we eliminate ads, it’s a much more direct comparison at $139 to B&N’s NOOK Simple Touch™ with GlowLight™. The Barnes & Noble device has an expandable memory slot. The Paperwhite has X-Ray, a feature that gives you background about the book you are reading. Neither one has audio, and both have touchscreens. These are comparable devices, with the GlowLight perhaps having the edge on hardware, and the Paperwhite having it on software. There is also a $179 ($199 without special offers) Kindle Paperwhite 3G, which adds the ease of connecting via the cell phone network.

Update: on September 30, B&N dropped the price of the NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight to $119…the same price as the ad-supported Paperwhite. There are people who reject ads on principle, and when these two are the same price, that will push some of those to the NOOK.

RSD with a physical keyboard

Barnes & Noble isn’t even choosing to compete on this. No touchscreen, no built-in light…but audio and free 3G. The Kindle Keyboard 3G at $139 is a solid option. That free 3G gives you another way to connect to the internet…and one that does not require you to be near a wi-fi network, so it’s great for people who aren’t as comfortable with technology. The audio gives it text-to-speech (where    software reads you the words out loud), and audible menus…this is the most accessible device. If you want the “cool gift”, this isn’t it, but if you want a practical reading machine for someone who isn’t as high tech or has a print disability, this is the one.

The entry level tablet

Just as they do with the ad-supported Mindle, Barnes & Noble cedes this one to Amazon. The Kindle Fire 7″ SD does have some of the features of more expensive tables (no Bluetooth ((so no way to use a physical keyboard or wireless headphones)), no HDMI out ((so you can’t connect it physically to a TV)), no camera), but at $159, it’s a great first or extra device. It has text-to-speech, which is a big selling point for me…I listen to TTS typically hours a week.  It’s not as friendly for the print disabled as the Kindle Keyboard above (how do you work a touchscreen without audible feedback?), but for people who just like TTS, that’s a big difference. I think this is going to be a hit in the holiday season.

The $199 tablets

This is the big hand(held) to hand(held) combat. In this corner, it’s the Kindle Fire HD 7″. In that corner, and a newcomer, is the NOOK HD.

Let’s break this one down:

• The Kindle HD has ads, although you can buy out of them for $15 (making it $214 without ads)
• The NOOK has only 8GB of memory, unless you move up to the 16GB at $229. Does that matter? When you start downloading movies (which B&N has just announced, yes, absolutely
• The NOOK comes in two different color cases (Snow and Smoke…is it just me, or do those sound like two minor league superheroes?)
• Wall charger is included with the NOOK, about $10 with the Kindle Fire HD…without that, you charge by USB
• Screen quality goes to the NOOK: 1440 by 900, versus 1280 x 800. What does that mean? What you see on a computer or similar screen is made up of dots called pixels. More dots per inch makes for a better picture…imagine a dot to dot without the lines connects, versus a pencil sketch: the dot to dot might have twenty “pixels”, the pencil sketch could have the equivalent of thousands. With these two, it works out to 243 pixels per inch versus 216. Will you notice it? That’s harder to say
• The NOOK is about two ounces lighter…hold it for an hour, you might feel the difference
• The NOOK’s processor is a bit faster: 1.3 versus 1.3GHZ
• The NOOK has an expandable memory slot: the Kindle Fire would use a wi-drive (wireless external drive)
• They both have some kind of individual profiles, but we won’t be able to compare that well until we see how Amazon’s FreeTime works in October
• The Kindle Fire HD has a front-facing camera for video calls…no camera on the NOOK HD
• The Kindle Fire HD has X-Ray for books and movies and syncing between audio and sight-reading

I’d sum it up this way: the NOOK does beat the Fire on hardware, but the memory size difference will matter to people. I don’t think the camera is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks. I do think Bluetooth** matters, especially if Amazon can work out a current glitchiness with Bluetooth keyboards. People who just look at the “cutting edge” nature of the hardware will lean towards the NOOK (ignoring the lower onboard memory, perhaps being okay with the expansion slot). People who want cutting edge features may lean towards the Kindle Fire HD. The latter is especially true when taking Amazon Prime into account (which is normally $79 a year). That has the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and I do take advantage of that…and free Prime streaming.

The big screen tablet

The NOOK HD+ is  bigger (9″ versus 8.9″) and cheaper ($269 versus $299) than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″. Regardless of anything else, that’s going to sell a lot of people on it. On the other hand, there is no camera and no Bluetooth.

Those both come with 16GB…if you go to 32GB, the NOOK+ is significantly cheaper: $369 for the Kindle, $299 for the NOOK.

The Kindle also comes with ads…$15 to buy out.

The Kindle has text-to-speech…and the NOOKs work with UltraViolet, which lets you effectively get a digital file with a DVD. That’s not free for all your old DVDs, and not available on everything, but it’s a good deal.

The NOOK includes a wall charger at no additional cost.

Unless Amazon makes some changes (matching UltraViolet, for example), I think this is going to tend to go to the NOOK, for people who haven’t already committed to Amazon.

The 4G tablet

This one is Amazon’s alone, with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE 32GB at $499 and the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE 64 GB at $599.

If you want to check e-mail or go on the web at the beach, this is the option. That does mean you would pay for a  data plan: Amazon is advertising an AT&T one starting at about $50 a year. At this point, though, you are clearly competing with the iPad, and that opens another discussion.

Amazon and Barnes and Noble also have their own special software features:

Amazon’s include

• Whispersync for voice (synchronize your place between an audiobook and sight-reading)
• X-Ray for movies (pause, and find out about the actors on the screen0
• X-Ray for books
• X-Ray for textbooks (even linked to relevant videos)
• Whispersync for games (sync game progress on different devices)
• Prime (annual fee) for free streaming video and a borrowing a book a month from a specific Kindle Owners’ Lending Library)
• Immersion reading (hear a voice and read the words at the same time)

Barnes & Noble

• NOOK IQ recommendations
• NOOK Catalogs (yep, like paper catalogs for stores, but on your device)
• NOOK Scrapbook (save magazine and catalog pages in one place)
• Customizable screen savers
• NOOK Channels…I think these are sort of like the playlists on Songza…expert groupings of similar topics

Quite simply…game on! Amazon wins on entry level devices, and the super high end. In terms of tablets, Barnes & Noble may gain some serious ground in the middle.  I think the Kindle Keyboard is still it’s own market slice, and I didn’t mention the Kindle DX (but that’s not really in the hot mix).

More information will come out in the next couple of months, but that should help you get started comparing them.

What do you think? Does the 8GB versus 16GB difference matter, if there’s an expansion slot? Does Amazon’s reputation just make it impossible for the NOOK tablets to move into first place? How much of a liability is it that Amazon defaults to having ads? Do the “enhanced reading features” at Amazon matter? Will Amazon respond in some way…if so, how? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

* When I first saw that there were customizable screen savers on the new NOOK tablets, I thought that would mean your own pictures. B&N has a chat feature for help, so I got a clarification:

===

Secure Connection
You are now connected with Richard Green from BN.com

Bufo Calvin: I’m interested in information about the customizable screen savers

Richard Green: Thank you for contacting Barnes & Noble Digital Support. I’m Richard.

Bufo Calvin: Hi!

Richard Green: I understand that you want to know customizable screen savers on new devices that are going release. Is that correct?

Bufo Calvin: Yes.

Bufo Calvin: Which devices, and what sorts of pictures can be used?

Richard Green: Sure, please give me a moment while I check the device details.

Bufo Calvin: Thanks.

Richard Green: Thank you for your time.

Richard Green: Yes, these new devices come with pre-loaded screen savers. You can select or change screen saver from the pre-loaded gallary.

Bufo Calvin: All of the new tablets? That also means you can’t use your own pictures as a screen saver?

Richard Green: Yes, you cannot use personal pictures for screen savers.

Bufo Calvin: Thank you, that clarifies it.

Richard Green: You are welcome.

Richard Green: \AE

Richard Green: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Richard Green: Sorry for the typo*

Bufo Calvin: That’s okay. I think I’m good for now…all of the NOOK tablets allow you to select from a pre-loaded “gallery” of screen savers, but not to use your own pictures.

===

** Update: thanks to reader Jackie who pointed out that the B&N press release says their tablets will have Bluetooth. That doesn’t appear anywhere on the site  that I could find. I’ll get a clarification from B&N, but that does even things out more if true

Update: Barnes & Noble has now confirmed for me that the new tablets do not have Bluetooth. Unfortunately, that means their initial press release was incorrect. That does happen…Amazon had to clarify the amount of memory on the KFSD, for example. I applaud B&N for having the chat option…although I did have a few issues with it. I tried to get on it this morning after 9:00 AM Eastern…and it was telling me I was outside the hours. Then, I tried to do it later…and it was unavailable because they were too busy. When I did get someone, as you see below, it was a little while before somebody actually connected with me; I would guess it might have been a couple of minutes.

===

Secure Connection
You are now connected with Chanakya from BN.com

Bufo Calvin: Do the new tablets have Bluetooth so you can use an external keyboard?

Chanakya: Good day Bufo, thanks for joining Barnes and Noble Digital Chat Support.

Chanakya: I’m sorry to inform you that the new NOOK hd and NOOK hd+ devices do not have the option of bluetooth.

Chanakya: Are we connected?

Bufo Calvin: Yes, thanks!

Chanakya: Okay.

Chanakya: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Bufo Calvin: Sorry, I stepped away while I was waiting. I appreciate that clarification…the initial press release indicated that it would be available, but I didn’t see it on the spec pages.

Bufo Calvin: No, that’s it…thanks so much!

Chanakya: You’re welcome.

Chanakya: Thanks for contacting Barnes and Noble Chat support.

===

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

UK NOOK

UK NOOK

Barnes & Noble has innovated some things with EBRs (E-Book Readers) and tablets in the USA.

However, one major comparison gap for them has been…well, the rest of the world*.

The Kindle 2 International was announced on October 7, 2009…nearly three years ago.

Sony (which recently released a new EBR) was international.

Well, B&N’s has just announced in this

press release

that the NOOK and NOOK Books will be available in the UK “mid-October”.

This little piece about what will be available (in terms of hardware) is intriguing:

“The first products to be available when the company begins offering its products in the UK in mid-October include Barnes & Noble’s line of critically acclaimed E Ink® Readers, NOOK Simple Touch™ and NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight™, the top-ranked eBook readers in the US.”

No tablets, and no mention of new EBRs. Of course, the new EBRs could come on quickly, but that suggests that an announcement of new reflective screen hardware may not come from B&N before October. They could release new reflective screen devices in the USA and not the UK before then.

I’m not sure how big a stand-out, trusted brand Barnes & Noble is in the UK…there are certainly homegrown bookstores, like Waterstones, that have to be part of that public trust mix in a different way than in the USA.

Will this change the perception in this Business Insider article?

Just Months After The Microsoft Investment, Barnes & Noble Is Back In The Danger Zone

I think it’s good that booklovers in the UK are getting another choice on EBRs…competition is a good thing. I’m not sure how helpful it will really be for B&N, though. I think the expanding of the e-book market is good, but I’m not sure that NOOK hardware is going to be big in their future. That’s particularly true because their partnership with Microsoft may make the Windows  8 integration with Microsoft hardware much more significant.

We’ll see, though…

What do you think? If you are in the UK, is this news you’ve been waiting to hear?

http://www.nook.co.uk

*There are parts of the world where the Kindle hasn’t really penetrated, notably much of the Middle East

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Barnes & Noble drops tablet prices…Amazon to follow?

Barnes & Noble drops tablet prices…Amazon to follow?

It’s happened before that Barnes & Noble has cut the price on hardware, and Amazon has responded with price cuts of their own.

In this case, people are expecting Amazon to release new hardware soon, which might also suggest a price cut on existing models.

In fact, my Significant Other today mentioned what I’m going to call “anticipation fatigue” with Amazon bringing out something new…it’s that thing where they keep telling you something is “just around the corner”. You know…”Are we there yet?”

Of course, it isn’t Amazon that is telling us…they have not said yet there they are ever going to introduce new models (except for a brief mention of a Kindle Fire “roadmap” recently).

However, I think there are some reasonable indicators, including sales on Kindles and accessories…and being out of stock on some models.

So, what has Barnes & Noble done?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nook/379003208

The NOOK Color has dropped from $169 to $149.

The NOOK Tablet 8GB dropped from $199 to $179 (so yes, it is now cheaper than the Kindle Fire).

The NOOK Tablet 16GB dropped from $249 to $199…a $50 reduction! While the drive is twice the size of the Kindle Fire, you still have a lot less memory you can use for off-store content. With the 16GB NOOK Tablet, you only get 1GB for your own stuff. 12GBs are for Barnes & Noble purchased content, and the remaining 3GB is used by the device. By contrast, the Fire has 8GB hardware, but you have 5.36GB of “internal storage”, which you do not have to use for Amazon purchases…that’s in addition to 1.17GB for apps.

Does this give us any hints into what Amazon will do?

Maybe…I think a new, more fully-featured Amazon Android tablet might still come in at $199. I think the current Fire might drop a lot…it might have been down to $149, possibly, but I’m now thinking it may be more like $169. An entry level larger screen tablet might be $249…with a more fully featured one more like $299.

Even though I’m a former retailer, though, I’m not at all confident on those prices.

I think they might also be able to work something interesting with Prime. What if it turns out that Fire Prime users are less expensive for Amazon than non Fire Prime users, since perhaps they take less advantage of the shipping? What if Amazon’s new robot system (along with interesting ideas like Amazon Lockers, and new fulfillment centers) is reducing the cost to Amazon for Prime?

If that’s the case, they could offer (in addition to a free month) a reduced price for Prime to tablet owners.

Now, I do think Amazon wants people to buy physical items through Prime, but if they don’t, that changes the economics.

I don’t think we’ll have an announcement before Wednesday, but we might have an announcement of an announcement. In other words, they might announce an upcoming press event. They could also lower prices before they announced new hardware.

Two other little notes:

• Barnes & Noble did not lower prices on their reflective screen devices
• I didn’t see a lot of buzz about these lower prices

While B&N got excellent reviews on their Glowlight version (I think we’ll see something like that on the RSKs…Reflective Screen Kindles), I wonder if they are falling out of the blog hive mind a bit. Is the competition now seen to be between Amazon’s Fire and Google’s Nexus (for now), rather than Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s NOOK? As long as B&N keeps the memory so locked down to things purchased from their store, I think that’s going to be a problem for general tech bloggers and business users.

“Timers and judges are you ready? Bloggers, take your marks…”

Just waiting for that starter’s gun!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Big British blow for B&N: Waterstones goes with Kindle

Big British blow for B&N: Waterstones goes with Kindle

The EBR (E-Book Reader) market is a lot more complicated than it might seem. It’s a war for global domination.

While Barnes & Noble has undoubtedly taken some of the market share for e-books in the US from Amazon and the Kindle (it was reportedly about 30% in April), the same isn’t true outside America.

You know what the percentage of e-book sales to British citizens that Barnes & Noble has?

Zero.

If you don’t have a US credit card and a US address, you can’t buy NOOK books.

I wanted to confirm that, so I chatted with a Barnes & Noble rep. That is a nice feature they have, by the way. It’s pretty easy to chat with somebody there. You can chat with Kindle Customer Service, but it doesn’t seem as readily available.

Here’s the transcript of our chat:

===

19:10:57 : Bufo Calvin: Initial Question/Comment: Can you purchase books for a NOOK from Barnes & Noble when outside the USA?

19:11:02 : System: Welcome to the Barnes & Noble Chatroom.

19:11:02 : System: Rian has joined this session!

19:11:02 : System: Connected with Rian. Your Reference Number for this chat is 905756.

19:11:03 : System: Thanks for joining us.

19:11:07 : Rian: Thank you for joining Barnes and Noble Digital Chat. This is Rian and I’m happy to assist you today.

19:11:13 : Rian: Hi, Bufo.

19:11:40 : Bufo Calvin: Hi!

19:11:47 : Rian: Just to clarify, you’re asking if you can purchase eBooks for the NOOK if you are outside U.S. Is that correct?

19:12:00 : Bufo Calvin: Yes, that’s correct.

19:12:07 : Rian: Thank you.

19:12:57 : Rian: Please be advised that you can download titles from bn.com for the NOOK if you have a valid U.S. credit card and billing address saved on your B&N account even if you are outside the United States.

19:13:49 : Bufo Calvin: Okay. What if you aren’t a US customer? Could a British citizen with British credentials purchase e-books for a NOOK?

19:14:58 : Rian: As long as the above information are met, there will be no problem, Bufo.

19:15:27 : Bufo Calvin: So, if someone did not have a US credit card and a US billing address, they could not purchase NOOK books?

19:15:48 : Rian: Yes, you are correct.

19:16:12 : Bufo Calvin: That’s what I wanted to know…thanks for your help!

19:16:33 : Rian: You’re welcome.

19:16:33 : Rian: Should you need further assistance in the future, please don’t hesitate to chat with us.

19:16:43 : Rian: Thanks once again for joining the Barnes & Noble Chat.

19:16:48 : Rian: Have a great night!

19:16:53 : Bufo Calvin: You, too!

===

Back in January, it was being reported that Barnes & Noble might be partnering with Waterstones (formerly Waterstone’s…they dropped the apostrophe to make it easier to work with the name online, as I understand it).

GOOD E READER article

That would have been a good move for Barnes & Noble.

Waterstones, founded in 1982, has literally hundreds of stores. If B&N had gotten the NOOK into those stores, it would have been a major step into the international market.

Unfortunately for them, not only did they not get it…Waterstones went with the Kindle:

Waterstones press release

To use the vernacular: “Hard cheese, Barnes & Noble.”

Not only that, Waterstones made it clear what they thought:

===

“The best digital readers, the Kindle family, will be married to the singular pleasures of browsing a curated bookshop. With the combination of our talents we can offer the exceptional customer proposition to which we both aspire.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO, said: “Waterstones is the premier high street bookseller and is passionate about books and readers – a dedication that we share deeply. We could never hope for a better partner to bring together digital reading and the physical bookstore.”

===

Ouch!

You might be thinking, “Hey, doesn’t Amazon already sell Kindles and Kindle books in the UK?”

Yep.

That makes this doubly bad for B&N. They might have made it a fight, but Amazon decided to enter the ring from both corners.

Waterstones faces challenges with their brick-and-mortar stores, of course, and I don’t know that this partnership will be enough…they were having a tough time, but did get a big influx of cash when a billionaire bought them.

In fact, last year, it was reported that Waterstones might be developing its own EBR:

Digital Spy article

I even put that prediction in the

ILMK E-Books Timeline

I’ll have to update that.

The coverage on this hasn’t all been exactly positive, especially in the UK:

• The Guardian: “Waterstones kindle a deal for destruction with Amazon”
• TechRadar: “Swallowed by Amazon: is selling the Kindle a good idea for Waterstones?
• Waterstones’ Kindles may end up killing it”
• Gizmodo.co.uk: “Waterstones Surrenders to the Amazon Ebook Behemoth and Agrees to Stock Kindles”
• brandchannel: “Waterstones’ Deal With the Devil – Amazon – Brings Kindle to the High Street”
• The Telegraph: “Waterstones: letting the Amazon fox into the chicken coop”

Yes, I did deliberately chose negative headlines…but they weren’t hard to find.

Honestly, I do think this is a major missed opportunity for B&N.

I’m curious as to what you think, especially if you are British. One angle for me: what do you think about Waterstones? Do you think of them as champions of paperbooks, or as crushers of small bookstores (or both, I suppose)? Are they the first ones you think of for a bookstore? When was the last time you were in one?

For everybody, does B&N need Britain? Could they make it there without a bookstore brick-and-mortar partner? If they don’t make it in Britain, how does taht affect their sales in the USA?

Feel free to let me know…

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Barnes & Noble teams up with Microsoft, splits off NOOK & College

Barnes & Noble teams up with Microsoft, splits off NOOK & College

Is this the end of the chain bookstore as we know it?

Quite possibly (sorry, Books-A-Million…I’m not ignoring you but you do feel different than a Borders, Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Crown Books).

Since this story is (largely) about books, it may take an hour or two before you see it on the news, but this really is a big story.

I don’t see the press release on the Barnes & Noble website yet…I’ll link it when it shows up there. I’ve only gotten it as an e-mail.

Here is the key thing:

“The new subsidiary, referred to in this release as Newco, will bring together the digital and College businesses of Barnes & Noble.  Microsoft will make a $300 million investment in Newco at a post-money valuation of $1.7 billion in exchange for an approximately 17.6% equity stake. Barnes & Noble will own approximately 82.4% of the new subsidiary, which will have an ongoing relationship with the company’s retail stores. Barnes & Noble has not yet decided on the name of Newco.”

Boom! Microsoft pumps a bunch of cash into Barnes & Noble.

One of the very interesting parts will be what that “ongoing relationship” with the retail stores will be.

Sure, NOOK software will be quickly available for Windows 8. That opens up many more users for B&N (although Windows users generally may already be using the Kindle app and the B&N reader app).

This may worry some of you:

Andy Lees, President of Microsoft said:

“Our complementary assets will accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of Windows devices, enabling people to not just read stories, but to be part of them. We’re on the cusp of a revolution in reading.”

If you don’t want your reading revolutionized, sorry.

I want to get this out to you right away, but I do expect the story to develop a great deal over the course of the day. What is it going to mean for Amazon and Apple? For Book-A-Million? For independent bookstores? It will be intriguing to watch stock movements today.

The news will solidify when B&N and Microsoft host a webcast at 8:30 AM Eastern Time this morning (about 45 minutes away as I write this).

www.barnesandnobleinc.com/webcasts

That’s probably when it will break.

Update: the press release is on the B&N site now:

Press Release

The same press release is on the Microsoft site:

Press Release

Update: Yes, the story has broken:

Wall Street Journal article

CNBC article

AP via Seattle PI

Update: I thought I’d give you a little background on two parts of this.

First, something that’s involved is Microsoft having sued Barnes & Noble. That was announced on March 21 of 2011:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2011/mar11/03-21corpnewspr.aspx

The basics of the claims have to do with the Android system allegedly infringing on Microsoft’s patents.

This

Foss Patents blogpost

gives you a pretty good overview.

Those suits can go on for a very long time, and this was still progressing.

This deal settles the legal situation between the two of them. It might seem odd that Microsoft is paying the money if it was the one suing. B&N may be paying them money for using the patents, which may make the amount that Microsoft pays effectively less.

The other thing is that Microsoft used to sell e-books.

They had a .lit (short for literature) format, which they introduced in the year 2000, and which they were phasing out. I wrote about it in this

earlier post

Microsoft may have just been too far ahead of the game. In 2000, e-books were obviously used mostly on computers…we didn’t have tablets and EBRs (E-Book Readers).

They still have an active website

http://www.microsoft.com/reader/

Microsoft was allowing people to download the application until August 30th of this year, although materials basically had stopped being sold on November 8th of 2011.

That’s both good and bad, in my mind. It shows that Microsoft was interested in books a long time ago (in tech years), and may still have people with experience (even though it may be largely run by B&N).

The bad news shows a willingness to abandon a format in the commercial market…

As always, I’m interested in your opinions on this.  Feel free to comment on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

8GB NOOK Tablet released for $199: head to head with the Kindle Fire

8GB Nook Tablet released for $199: head to head with the Kindle Fire

Barnes & Noble released a new version of their NOOK tablet today, with 8GB of memory rather than 16GB…and at the same price as the Kindle Fire at $199:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/nook-tablet-barnes-noble/1104687969

This eliminates the “easy choice argument” for the Fire over the 16GB NOOK Tablet…did you want to pay $50 more for it?

Honestly, people are going to see this as a real challenger to the Fire in what I call the “entertablet” (a portmanteau of “entertainment” and “tablet”) market.

The memory comparison is much stronger than it was before. There is more user available memory on the 8GB NOOK Tablet than on the 16. The NT8 (my new abbreviation) has 5GBs available for your files (not B&N content): the NT16 only has 1GB. That puts the NT8 in line with the Fire, which has 5.36 for general personal files and 1.17 specifically for apps.

There will be other things that stand out to comparison shoppers:

• The NT8 has a microphone. The Kindle Fire can use a particular type of microphone in the headphone jack, but that’s probably baling wire and chewing gum in comparison
• The NT8 natively reads Excel and PowerPoint: the KF needs apps
• You can create your own wallpapers with the NT8, not with the KF
• The NT8 can take up to a 32GB micro SD card…not memory expansion slot on a KF. You can use a wi-fi drive, but again, not as convenient
• The KF is half an inch shorter…but weighs a bit more
• The KF allows sideloading using a USB cable…the NT8 doesn’t have a port for that (but you could use the SD card)

Seriously, line up the tangibles and ignore the companies, and I think many people would select the NOOK Tablet 8GB over the Kindle Fire.

The intangibles count, though. Amazon’s Customer Service has been so much better for me than the experiences I’ve had online with Barnes & Noble. Amazon lets you “return” a Kindle store book for a refund with seven days of purchase. Barnes & Noble still doesn’t allow the return of NOOK Books at any time:

“Items That Cannot Be Returned
We are unable to accept returns for NOOK Books, magazines, downloadable PDFs for SparkNotes products, gift cards, and shrink-wrapped items that have been opened. Please note: Once purchased, NOOK Books cannot be refunded.”

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/help/cds2.asp?PID=8121

If you pay to be an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow up to a book a month from about 100,000 titles, and watch Prime streaming videos at no additional cost.

However, I think those are intangibles are a tough sale to people who haven’t already committed to one company or the other emotionally.

Will Amazon respond?

They’ve responded to Barnes & Noble before, but this is a tough call.

They can’t just lower the price: Barnes & Noble also lowered the price on the NOOK Color to $169: even though it isn’t technically comparable to the Fire, it puts that price into a comparison chart.

Amazon could announce a bigger, more expensive one. They could announce new features (come on, text-to-speech! Someone in the Kindle forum recently reported that Amazon told them they were working on TTS for the Fire). They could coast…but I think that might be a mistake here.

What do you think? Does Amazon need to respond to this? Will this take market share? How does a possible smaller iPad play into this? Feel free to let me know by commenting this post…

Thanks to my reader Susan for a proof-reading comment on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

“Maybe we’ll just go with ‘Barnes’”…B&N considers spinning off the NOOK business

“Maybe we’ll just go with ‘Barnes’”…B&N considers spinning off the NOOK business

Back in June, I said this about Barnes & Noble:

“They are doing some smart things, and I think there is a good chance they’ll survive…even if that doesn’t mean having anywhere near the brick-and-mortar presence they did before (at least for books).”

Well, in this fascinating

Press Release

Barnes & Noble talks about their holiday quarter sales.

They suggest that they might separate the NOOK business from the physical bookstores.

That’s been the headline news, certainly, and it’s important.

However, there are several significant elements in the information they provided:

• The NOOK Simple Touch underperformed, although it did well. They assure us that they will continue to market it for “years to come”, but they say “…the Company over-anticipated the growth in consumer demand for single purpose black-and-white reading devices this holiday. ” One scary interpretation for them is that, if Amazon offers something similar, people will choose Amazon over Barnes & Noble. Did people choose the Kindle Fire over the NOOK Tablet? Did they choose the Kindle Touch over the NOOK Simple Touch? That seems likely
• They are really looking to take the NOOK international…that’s a place where Amazon has really led the way
• “Physical book sales on a comparable basis increased by 4% at Barnes & Noble stores, exhibiting growth for the first time in five years.” Yes, physical book sales are up…in the stores. This next piece struck me as possibly a serious, serious problem:  ”…This increase was driven by continued growth of the NOOK business, offset by a decline in online physical product sales.” The online business is down? That’s the future…that should be growing, as it was for other people. Is Amazon Prime cutting into this? Barnes & Noble has their own member free express shipping program…but Amazon is now giving free streaming videos and the ability to borrow up to a book a month (from a certain set of books)
• Toy sales are up…again
• Barnes & Noble College bookstore sales are expected to be “flat”…that’s okay

What did investors think of this?

The stock is down more than 21% in the last five days.

http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=BKS

That doesn’t mean that things are over. However, the future may not look like the past…or like the future they expected.

Coincidentally, as I was driving past the shuttered Borders near me this morning, a worker was finally taking the name off the building…

• Wall Street Journal: “Barnes & Noble May Separate Nook Business as Losses Mount”
• Fortune: “Yes B&N, cut the Nook loose”
• CBS: “Barnes & Noble shares dip again”

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Want more storage for your stuff? The Fire crushes B&N’s tablet

Want more storage for your stuff? The Fire crushes B&N’s tablet

Read that headline again, because it’s the opposite of what you’ll hear over the next few days in coverage of the Kindle Fire versus the new NOOK Tablet.

I need to explain this one.

First, the NOOK Tablet has twice the onboard memory as the Fire (16GB versus 8GB). That, though, is just the hardware. That drive has to also hold the operating system, which is understandable.

Amazon says there are 6GB available for user content:

“8GB internal (approximately 6GB available for user content). That’s enough for 80 apps, plus 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.”

Okay, about 2GBs on the Fire goes for the operating system and such…that’s reasonable.

How about the NOOK Tablet?

B&N says:

“Approximately 13GB available to store content, of which up to 12GB may be reserved for content purchased from the Barnes & Noble NOOK Store.”

My headline says ‘YOUR stuff” (emphasis added), and that’s the key point.

Amazon gives you 6GB of storage for your content on the Kindle Fire.

Barnes & Noble gives you 1GB.

Fire: six times as much.

Amazon has never reserved onboard memory on a Kindle for Amazon purchased materials, to my knowledge. If you wanted to “sideload” a few audiobooks on there, books from Baen, your own music…you could fill up the memory.

Barnes & Noble is limiting how you use your local “hard drive”…we aren’t talking about the cloud here.

That sounded odd to me, so I asked someone at Barnes & Noble. I chatted with someone…while I was given a human name, I got a lot of canned responses…enough to make me suspect I was speaking with a database, although I don’t know that.

I got the exact same response twice…to two different questions.

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation:

===

13:20:24 : Paul: My name is Paul, Thank you for joining Barnes & Noble chat. How are you doing today? How may I help you?

13:20:30 : : Sure. The new NOOK Tablet says: “Approximately 13GB available to store content, of which up to 12GB may be reserved for content purchased from the Barnes & Noble NOOK Store.” So, if I have 2GBs of personal files, I can not put them on the NOOK Tablet, correct?

13:20:37 : : Hi, Paul!

13:21:06 : Paul: NOOK Tablet has 16GB of built-in memory lets you hold up to 10,000 books. You can add up to 32GB memory to your device with a microSD memory card.

13:21:11 : Paul: The 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.

13:21:39 : : Yes, correct. So that means there is only 1 GB for material not purchased from the NOOK store, right?

13:22:46 : Paul: Yes, for the Personal sideload files.

===

I went on to ask about NOOK cloud storage.

The answer was clear: no personal document storage in the NOOK cloud.

Amazon gives you 5GBs free just for personal document storage for your Kindles.

That makes it 11GB possible for the Kindle, 1GB for the NOOK Tablet for personal documents.

I’d call that “crushing”.

They both appear to give you unlimited cloud storage purchased from their respective stores.

Now, does that make the memory always better for the Fire?

Nope.

If you were going on a cruise, for example, and you were going to be away from wi-fi and a computer for a long time, you might want to carry a lot of information with you…and the NOOK tablet would give you that SD card in addition to the onboard storage.

If you brought a laptop with you, in addition to your Fire, you could sideload from that…using it like that SD card.

That’s nowhere near as convenient, though.

Still, the Kindle Fire gives you more storage for your personal stuff than the NOOK tablet does…but I don’t think you’ll hear that much.

Thanks to Becca for commenting on a previous post and nudging me along, and to D. Andersen in the Amazon Kindle community for bringing up the cruise example.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.