I agree that Kobo has a good shot at being a strong competitor int he platform market - they put far more effort than B&N and Sony in the smartphone and tablet environment. Their iPad app is really quite good and is updated regularly. I"m not 100% keen on their social features, but they're not annoying.
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Originally Posted by sufue
My main concern about Kobo's viability is how @$#%)@ it is to use their website for much beyond finding a book you already know about. Their search is abominable and actually got ***worse*** not too long ago - unless you put things in quotes, you get mostly listings that have scant relationship to the keywords you entered. And, they have no advanced search function, and only very limited ability to sort search results. If they'd fix these things, I'd be more optimistic about their future.
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This!
My main problems with Kobo as a customer are the
a. the icky site search mentioned above
b. the fact that they are trying to play internationally, but are using a Canadian bank-processor, resulting in unmentioned bank exchange fees for non-Canadian customers. The fees are usually minimal, so the price is still good, but it creates a bad taste for customers, leaving the impression that Kobo is misleading in prices.
c. In the case of my bank, my credit card gets shut down EVERY time I shop there, because multiple, small international transactions are a fraud flag. Annoying. And I've contacted their customer service two times to find out if I can purchase gift certificates for myself to redeem to avoid the fraud flag, and have had no reply.
So B&N gets my (very little) book-buying money, and then I swiftly deDRM and sideload into Kobo, Kindle and iBooks, depending on the preference and type of book.