WebProNews

Tag: ereader

  • Kindle Fire HDX Was Best Selling Item On Amazon Over The Black Friday Weekend

    For the past few years, the Kindle line of eReaders and tablets have been the best selling electronic devices on Amazon during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you thought that was going to change this year, think again.

    Amazon announced today that the Kindle family had its best holiday weekend ever thanks a number of sales across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In fact, the retailer notes that more people bought Kindle eReaders and Kindle Fire tablets this past weekend than any other weekend on record, and that the Kindle Fire HDX and Kindle Fire HD were the best selling items on Amazon all weekend long.

    “We’re excited that so many customers have chosen Kindle this holiday season—and it’s just getting started!” said Neil Lindsay, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Our new Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers are the best we’ve ever built, and we can’t wait for customers to unwrap their gifts this holiday.”

    If you missed out on the Kindle holiday weekend rush, you will probably have more chances to score one on the cheap before Christmas. Amazon is known for its absurd holiday sales, and the retailer will undoubtedly put its Kindle Fire devices on sale again before Christmas. If not, you can always see if retailers like Best Buy, Radio Shack or Staples will put Kindle Fire devices on sale.

    It will be interesting to see just how well Barnes & Noble Nook did over the holiday weekend as the retailer dropped the prices of its Nook Simple Touch and Nook HD to $39 and $79 respectively. While the low prices were certainly attractive, was it enough to give a boost to the bookseller’s ailing consumer electronics business? We won’t know for sure until the company’s next quarterly report, or if they had a good enough holiday weekend to gloat like Amazon has.

    [Image: Amazon]

  • Barnes & Noble Introduces A New Nook GlowLight

    Amazon has been killing it these past few years with its line of Kindle eReaders and Kindle Fire tablets. Barnes & Noble on the other hand has been struggling to remain relevant by releasing arguably better hardware at lower prices, but it just never seems to work. Well, it’s going to try again anyway with an update to one of its most popular eReaders.

    Barnes & Noble announced today that a new Nook GlowLight is now available. The original GlowLight was the first eReader with a bright backlight screen to help people read even in broad daylight. Amazon fired back with the Kindle Paperwhite last year and even released an updated version of it back in September. The new Nook GlowLight is presumably set to compete with the new Paperwhite as it sports a lighter designer and a better display.

    “Barnes & Noble was the first company to recognize and answer E Ink customers’ number one request with a breakthrough integrated light for reading in the dark and today, with the new Nook GlowLight, we’ve taken the reading experience to a new level,” said Mahesh Veerina, Chief Operating Officer of Nook Media. “We developed an all new lightweight design that’s extremely comfortable to hold in one hand for people who love to read anytime, anywhere. Lighter and brighter, with crisp, sharp text, no full page flashing and no ads, our redesigned reading experience is more immersive than ever making the device a must-have item for long-form readers. We welcome customers to their local Barnes & Noble store where they can try the new Nook GlowLight and see it shine.”

    In its press release, Barnes & Noble stresses that the Nook GlowLight is on par with, if not better than, the Kindle Paperwhite, but the most important differentiator is that the GlowLight has no ads. As you may know, Amazon ships all base models of its eReaders and tablets with ads. You can pay an extra $20 to remove said ads, but the fact still remains that all the cheap eReaders from Amazon will bombard you with ads on the lock screen. That won’t happen on the GlowLight and Barnes & Noble obviously hopes that’s enough to bring people over to Nook.

    Aside from the new hardware and its ad-free stance, Barnes & Noble is also bringing a new shopping experience to the new GlowLight. Now the Nook store features a “Now on Nook” on the homepage that gives users “a curated list of content suggestions from Barnes & Noble booksellers.” It also introduces what the bookseller calls Nook Channels – a variety of storefronts that “expand [consumers’] passions for the authors and subjects they love.”

    The new Nook GlowLight is available today for $119 – the same price of a Kindle Paperwhite. Barnes & Noble wants you to remember, however, that it’s the only one with an ultra-bright, affordable eReader without any ads.

    [Image: Barnes & Noble/Business Wire]

  • Barnes & Noble Founder Plans To Buy Retail Operation

    Barnes & Noble Founder Plans To Buy Retail Operation

    Barnes & Noble looked like it was on its way back to relevancy after a number of quarters of profitability thanks to its Nook tablets. That all ended last year as the company began posting losses, and it looked like its Nook business was starting to come up short against Amazon. Now the company may be breaking apart its various businesses in a bid to save the company.

    Leonard Riggio, founder of Barnes & Noble, Chairman of the Board and largest shareholder, announced this morning that he plans to buy the brick and mortar retail business of the book store. There’s nothing set in stone just yet, but it would be the second time in the past few months that an ailing business was bought by its founder. The first, of course, being the acquisition of Dell by its founder Michael Dell for $24.4 billion.

    Riggio’s plan is to only buy the company’s retail business. The Nook business was spun off last year so where does this plan leave that? According to a report from The New York Times, the company is looking into winding down its Nook business.

    It doesn’t mean that the Nook brand, which was spun off from the retail business last year, will be dead. It only means that Barnes & Noble might stop making its own hardware in favor of licensing its own Nook software to other manufacturers. In essence, we’d see tablets and eReaders from other manufacturers running the Nook software. The company would also presumably focus on its software presence on other platforms like Windows 8, iOS and Android.

    If Riggio is successful in his bid to buy the retail operation, it could give Microsoft an opening to purchase the Nook operation. Nook is already closely tied to Windows 8 after Microsoft pumped $300 million into the business last year. Nook is already the best eReader app on Windows 8, and further cultivation at the hands of Microsoft could turn it into a worthy competitor to Apple’s iBooks and Amazon’s Kindle.

    All of this is purely speculation for now, and the Barnes & Noble board may not even approve Riggio’s bid to buy the company’s retail operation. Still, it does look like the company will at least be winding down its Nook hardware operations. A focus on its digital business could just be what Nook needs to become profitable again.

    [h/t: The Verge]

  • Kobo Announces A New Android Tablet To Take On Amazon

    Would anybody be so bold to announce a new line of eReaders and Android tablets the same day as Amazon’s big press event? The Kindle Fire HD and Paperwhite are immediately impressive, but is there an alternative? Kobo thinks they have just the thing.

    Kobo announced today that they will be bringing four new devices to market this year. Three of the devices are updates to their eReader line while the other is an entirely new direction for the company – a 7-inch Android tablet. Kobo’s eReaders are currently in the hands of more than 10 million people around the world, but they obviously want to expand that.

    Taking on the Paperwhite and the Nook is the Kobo Glo. It uses what they call ComfortLight technology to provide a superior reading experience. In reality, it uses the same frontlit screen technology that the Kindle Paperwhite and Nook use to replicate a realistic reading experience. The device will be available on October 1 for $129.99. For comparison, the Wi-Fi Paperwhite will only be $119.

    Kobo is also taking on the original Kindle with the Kobo Mini. The 5-inch tablet is reportedly the smallest and lightest eReader on the market. It uses the same E Ink screen that other eReaders feature but offers the convenience of being able to fit inside a pocket. It will hold up to 1,000 eBooks. The Kobo Mini will retail for $79.99 on October 1.

    The Kobo Touch is already available, but the company decided to give it a price cut to remain competitive. The eReader is now only $99.99. It features new software that Kobo says will help readers “personalize the reading experience, get recommendations and discover new content.”

    The major announcement from Kobo today, however, comes in the form of the Kobo Arc. It’s a 7-inch Android tablet that runs on a customized version of Ice Cream Sandwich. The UI is called Tapestries and it pins content on the homepage to recommend new content to users. One major advantage of the Kobo Arc is that it’s able to access the Google Play store for even more apps than what Amazon offers on their store. The Kobo Arc launches in November in two flavors – 8GB for $199.99 and 16GB for $249.99.

    While it lacks the killer presentation that Amazon put on, Kobo has a decent line up of devices for the holiday season. They cost more than Amazon’s offerings, but the Kobo brand has its loyal fans. They’re sure to eat up these new products, and they just might get some new fans this year as well.

  • Amazon Will Now Sell Its eBooks Through Other Retailers

    Amazon Will Now Sell Its eBooks Through Other Retailers

    Amazon is known for books. Even before the Kindle, the site was a favorite of book buyers. The company is now a major player in the eBook scene with their own major publishing imprint. Published books on their imprint were previously only available through Amazon, but those books will now start to appear elsewhere.

    Paid Content reports that Amazon has inked a deal with Ingram that will see books published through Amazon NY available through Barnes & Noble, Apple and Kobo. Book lovers, regardless of eReader, will now be able to read the content available from Amazon.

    As always, there is a catch. The deal doesn’t guarantee that Amazon’s books will appear on other devices. It’s unlikely that Apple will stock Amazon-published books. The Cupertino-based company has outright rejected an eBook in the past for linking to Amazon. I just don’t see the two putting aside their rivalry for a little mutual benefit.

    As for Barnes & Noble and Kobo, you can probably expect eBooks to start popping up on their respective services soon. Barnes & Noble is probably going to be the most aggressive with this new deal as their Nook eReader is quite popular. The promise of more content, even if it is from Amazon, may entice people to go with the Nook over the Kindle.

    That being said, the Kindle is still amazingly popular among readers. Just yesterday, Amazon let it be known that Kindle owners had downloaded or borrowed the 180,000 Kindle-exclusive books over 100 million times. Unfortunately, today’s deal won’t see those exclusive titles appearing anywhere else. Even with their publishing imprint going to other carriers, people might still flock to Kindle for their exclusive books.

    Regardless of what eReader the consumer buys, this is a win for Amazon. They are already a fairly large publisher, but this could push them to even greater heights. They will grow even larger in the unlikely event that Amazon eBooks show up on the iPad.

  • E-reading Company Kobo Sold To Rakuten For $315 Million

    E-reading Company Kobo Sold To Rakuten For $315 Million

    Kobo, makers of e-readers and e-reading apps, announced today that their sale to Rakuten has closed. Rakuten, based in Japan, is a major global marketplace, selling a wide variety of products around the world. The sale was first announced in early November.

    The sale means that Kobo will have a new marketplace for its e-readers, something it desperately needed after Borders, its previous primary retail partner, went out of business. Though hardly one of the big names in the e-reader business, Kobo’s products are generally well-reviewed. Their products include a line of e-readers, as well as e-reading apps for iOS, Android, and Blackberry.

    Kobo saw a remarkable surge during the 2011 holiday season. They gained over a million new users in December. New customers increased 10-fold compared to pre-holiday numbers. Meanwhile, this year saw a 500% increase in eGifting, and a doubling of sales eReaders and eBooks.

    Michael Serbinis, Kobo’s CEO, said that the acquisition by Rakuten “will accelerate our growth internationally, bringing new products, a leading eReading experience and a world class catalogue to passionate readers everywhere.”

    [Source: Kobo Press Release]