Went to Target today and decided to check the Story HD out. I think its poor sales can be attributed to a couple of factors.
1. The story is just one of 5 reader brands that Target carries (The others being Kindle, Sony, Nook and Kobo), and in some cases carry multiple readers from the brands. This makes it hard for any reader to stand out... which tends to steer users toward the brands they are most familiar with (i.e., Kindle and Nook).
2. The target I was in did nothing to push this reader. Yes they had the reader out... they had let the batter go dead on the unit. There was nothing to indicate this was a Target exclusive and unless you had a working demo, there was nothing to indicate what made it unique (integration with Google Books or the high res screen). Add to that, that before the price was dropped, most of its direct competitors (price wise) had touch screens which many (myself included) don't care about but which many do... and well... It ends up looking like a Kindle clone.
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Bill
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