Nook sold out

[GA Russell]

One of the things that has struck me about the people here is how many of you own more than one eBook reader.

It's still early in the game, and there look to be many developments (particularly in size) to come in 2010, yet many here have two or three devices.

So it may be that the general public is only partially taken with the nook (to the extent that they would order it sight unseen). It may be that the inventory has been sold out not to the general public but rather to early adopters who already have a device and are curious, not needful.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

One of the things that has struck me about the people here is how many of you own more than one eBook reader.

It's still early in the game, and there look to be many developments (particularly in size) to come in 2010, yet many here have two or three devices.

So it may be that the general public is only partially taken with the nook (to the extent that they would order it sight unseen). It may be that the inventory has been sold out not to the general public but rather to early adopters who already have a device and are curious, not needful.

inventory? how many units? 10 samples?

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Ocean

I love my Kindle. You can have it when you pry it from...

My cold dead hands.

(finished that for you!)

[Kali Yuga]

FYI, another article, this one in Financial Times, which discusses the situation. As with the NYT blog blurb, analysis suspect that Sony and B&N aren't facing a specific parts shortage, but still can't manufacture units quickly enough.

Again it's unclear how this will impact the overall "horse race" -- analysts suspect the Kindle will grab 60% of the market -- but I do think it will be awkward for both of these companies to have empty in-store displays for the entire holiday season.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80a74582-d...nclick_check=1

[SensualPoet]

As a recent e-book device owner (Friday), I had evaluated the Sony reader and played with it at a street fair book event a year ago. Very impressive. But, no sale: I waited for the Amazon Kindle 2 to be available in Canada.

Why? Amazon. The brand (and customer service) is to books what Sony is not: it's the content, baby. B&N's Nook looks lovely: but what's the B&N presence outside of the US?

And I have to say the wireless thing is incredibly compelling -- even though it is "crippled" outside of the US. It works on books from Amazon at least. Did I mention the true value of the device is the content, baby?

There is room for improvement: and I can wait as Amazon assesses all the new players and makes incremental improvements through the OS and larger ones through Kindle 3 or Kindle DX 2.

As much as I admire Sony, and can relate to the goodies in B&N's Nook, and some of the added value in other devices, the winner is going to be the player that delivers a highly capable device, at a competitive price, and makes content acquisition dead simple. In the current horse race, Amazon is ahead by much more than a nose.

[sianon]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

As a recent e-book device owner (Friday), I had evaluated the Sony reader and played with it at a street fair book event a year ago. Very impressive. But, no sale: I waited for the Amazon Kindle 2 to be available in Canada.

Why? Amazon. The brand (and customer service) is to books what Sony is not: it's the content, baby. B&N's Nook looks lovely: but what's the B&N presence outside of the US?

And I have to say the wireless thing is incredibly compelling -- even though it is "crippled" outside of the US. It works on books fro Amazon at least. Did I mention the true value of the device is the content, baby?

There is room for improvement: and I can wait as Amazon assesses all the new players and makes incremental improvements through the OS and larger ones through Kindle 3 or Kindle DX 2.

As much as I admire Sony, and can relate to the goodies in B&N's Nook, and some of the added value in other devices, the winner is going to be the player that delivers a highly capable device, at a competitive price, and makes content acquisition dead simple. In the current horse race, Amazon is a ahead by much more than a nose.

Agreed, the Kindle is so easy to get content for and onto the device. I have used many other E-Books and this is by far the best. The Nook looks like it will be equally easy to use, however it does appear limited to the United States market, at least for now.

I suspect my ideal device would be an ultra thin 10 inch tablet capable of running the PC software for all platforms and with a back light that can be dialed down in terms of brightness.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

at a competitive price, and makes content acquisition dead simple. In the current horse race, Amazon is a ahead by much more than a nose.

For price? Not outside the US. The added charges push them above the competition.

And personally any device which supports drag and drop is sufficient for me, not any which requires specific software...

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

...and makes content acquisition dead simple...

I think for most people, that's it in a nutshell.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by taglines

nook.....lowercase.....not Nook. but nook. the logo says nook. it's a nook. it's not a Nook. if they wanted to call it a Nook, they would haved spelled it with a capital N. they didn't. it's a nook.

Actually, it's a bnook. the 'b' is both silent and normally invisible.

[fugazied]

Nothing increases sales like a fake shortage (we learnt that from wii sales fever!). I'm hoping there is big demand for it, we need some more pressure on Sony/Kindle.

Let the ebook wars heat up!

[maggotb0y]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Care to back that up with a statement from Nintendo that they held units back on purpose?
BOb

Well, I don't think you're likely to find any consumer products company willing to go on the record with product strategy like that. But it's been pretty well documented that Europe's supply exceeded demand (here's one of many articles: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.464cd43.html), while the U.S. was not getting enough Wiis shipped to fill consumers desires. This probably has more to do with the U.S. dollar than with creating an artificial shortage, but I'm relatively sure that Nintendo was smart enough to run some projections before adopting this strategy to verify it would not harm the brand in the U.S.

That being said, I don't think the lack of nooks is at all related to any sort of build up demand strategy- not with two relatively strong competitors in the market.

[ZacWolf]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned, is that the nook is also based on Google's Android OS, so I'm sure we'll see hacking very quickly.

I think the combination of the full-color mini touch-screen[multi-touch?] and the eInk display will make hacking a very useful thing. I would love to see the device used for video (and the screen ratio looks to be the wide-screen cinema resolution of 2.39:1?).

I think a combo movie/ebook format that would basically allow you to "follow-along" (or show the "diffs") would be a pretty wild feature for future "editions". Or even something like a copy of the original scripts and/or story-boards would be pretty kewl.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by ZacWolf

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned, is that the nook is also based on Google's Android OS, so I'm sure we'll see hacking very quickly.

As a half-way point toward hackability is also "appability". Even opening up a controlled, approved avenue for development (as with the iPhone) would be a step forward.

If it becomes popular, you can just about guarantee that the next major device announcement would be the gReader, a Google Experience e-book reading device with a direct pipeline to Google Books.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

As a half-way point toward hackability is also "appability". Even opening up a controlled, approved avenue for development (as with the iPhone) would be a step forward.

Not really. But you can jailbreak iPhones anyway...

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Not really.

That's why I said "step forward," instead of "optimum end result." Maybe I didn't make that clear enough. The phrase "a step forward," the way I meant it, was intended to indicate an improvement over the way the current situation is--that being no application development at all. Though I may be misunderstanding you. Your point may be that no application development would be better.