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it does seem like good news that a big distributor like Barnes and Noble is jumping into ebooks at this level. it could be a huge step forward for them and if they find a way to integrate ebook sales into their brick and mortar shops (ebook kiosks, for instance, as have been discussed numerous times here...) it could be excellent for their own health as well during this key evolution of the industry. let's hope they are smart enough to really take advantage of the opportunity to create a fully-integrated e and paper book buying plateform.
the teleread article also makes some excellent (and reassuring) points when mentioning that fictionwise was *not* acquired by amazon or ingram ; either of them would have been a much more worrying move for the availability of "multi-format" drm-free books currently offered by fictionwise. and this is excellent news also for the availability of epub books, since amazon would almost certainly have torpedoed fictionwise's plans to integrate that format into their offer, with or without ereader drm.
hopefully barnes and noble will be able to use their relationships with publishers to encourage more digital editions of more titles.
overall this does seem like encouraging news.
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