"Barnes & Noble holiday sales drop on Nook slump"

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by VictoriaP

3. Durability--this one is based on a small sample size, but everyone I personally know who has owned a Nook of any model has seen that device fail after what I'd consider a pretty short lifespan. One friend in particular went through three in three years, while I was still reading on my original Kindle 2. I upgraded out of choice, she did it because she had to. (She's since given up & reads on an iPad; as such, she no longer buys books from BN either.)

Take a point against this I purchased a Nook Touch at eBay (I live in Spain) arount two years and half ago (gadgetaddict). I gave it to my brother two years ago. This year I've asked him if he wanted a new ereader for Christmas. He has said me: no. It works and he likes it better than his wife's T1 and Kindle paperwhite. And I purchased around the same time a Nook previous to Touch (I don't remember the name) and a friend of mine is still using it.

[NickyWithNook]

I have two Nook Simple Touches in my house, and a Nook Tablet and a Nook Color. The Color's processing speed is sad, but they've all held up, and the Color was primarily used by a 3-year-old (now 4-year-old.)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Since this thread is about B&N/Nook, please explain exactly how you load a DRM protected ePub bought from B&N onto a non-Nook eReader without stripping the DRM.

For bonus points, explain how to load a DRM protected ePub bought from Apple onto a Nook.

Thanks for playing.

Umm, you.... don't??? You strip the DRM, obviously.

What does this thread being about B&N/Nook have anything to do with getting on a moral high horse about the DRM issue?

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

I'm sure those users never buy any EPUB with DRM, because it deviates from the standard and it's once again proprietary.

Those users also never endorse or support MP3 files and refuse to listen to audio on any device that doesn't support Vorbis, FLAC or OPUS. Well actually only FLAC, because conversion between formats might not be perfect.

If you honestly don't see the differences in adoption and "openness" between AZW and EPUB (and absurd attempt draw parallels between MP3 and other audio formats) then I'll leave you to your pro-Amazon bias. I have no desire to convince you otherwise.

But I'll leave you with this... reader manufacturers can license EPUB format for their use. Can they license AZW from Amazon?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

Can they license AZW from Amazon?

I can't say for sure if they can at this point in time, but Bezos has said in the past that it was available for license.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

Can they license AZW from Amazon?

Sure.
They'd have to be idiots to want it but they can.

[tubemonkey]

I heart my Kindle device - the all-American standard

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

If you honestly don't see the differences in adoption and "openness" between AZW and EPUB (and absurd attempt draw parallels between MP3 and other audio formats) then I'll leave you to your pro-Amazon bias. I have no desire to convince you otherwise.

But I'll leave you with this... reader manufacturers can license EPUB format for their use. Can they license AZW from Amazon?

Does it make a difference? The only people who care are the spiritual heirs of Richard Stallman.

[charmian]

http://eoinpurcellsblog.com/2014/01/...-nook-problem/

Taking those one by one the device sales driving content sales suggests two things which would be clear to anyone looking in on Nook. For too long, the digital content side of the business has been a slave to the device side. Too little effort has been made to open content sales to those without devices, too little effort on gaining ground on smartphones and tablets other than Nooks.

If the digital content side is to thrive then B&N will have to encourage readers to buy Nook content everywhere and anywhere they can connect to the web regardless of device and to do so more easily than they currently can (which probably means rethinking the company’s current DRM strategy). In some ways the failure of the tablets (and note, I laud even what might be termed a failure here. B&N has still sold a LOT of devices) probably makes this a likely development anyway. Hopefully it will be a rapid one too.

Maybe instead of trying to market Nook tablets, B&N should be promoting the Nook app to shoppers at its stores?

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

But I'll leave you with this... reader manufacturers can license EPUB format for their use. Can they license AZW from Amazon?

I don't get it? .azw is just an extension, and mobi is available to anyone, isn't it?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I don't get it? .azw is just an extension, and mobi is available to anyone, isn't it?

Well, you see, with epub people distinguish between the magical annointed standard (which is assumed to be DRM-free) and the incompatible DRMed forks sold by the major ebookstores, but with eeee-vile Amazon, they assume all ebooks are DRMed, just as they assume Amazon is the only source of kindle ebooks.
All evidence to the contrary is waved away.
Its a subject best ignored by now, really.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by charmian

Maybe instead of trying to market Nook tablets, B&N should be promoting the Nook app to shoppers at its stores?

Actually, they need to promote Nook ebooks to people who *don't* shop at B&N: there are more of those, and increasingly so.

It can be argued that the downward spiral (and the glut of Nook STs that continues even today) is because their fast ereader sales of 2010-early 2011 were driven mostly by brand loyalty and not by the broader market.

It takes a lot of misreads and mistakes to get where Nook is and they tend to compound so that there is no single solution to stem the bleeding.

At a minimum, they need to convince ebook buyers that Nook will be around for the long haul. And that is just the start of it. They do need desirable hardware, they do need broad app support, but they also need a better bookstore, better customer policies, better pricing, and above all, and end to the constant bad news.

The easiest start would be to sell the ebook business to somebody who can rebrand it and get it out from under the doom-n-gloom.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by porkupan

The big hardware vendors are obviously trying to make their customers purchase content from them. Amazon is making it very difficult for its customers to purchase content from anyone else. Not impossible, given certain knowledge, but for 99% of their customers - near impossible. Sony on the other hand made buying books from online stores a totally open process. B&N is trying to emulate Amazon, of course.

You really do not know what you are talking about.

It is trivial to purchase Amazon books from other vendors. You don't even have to sideload; you can e-mail them directly to your Kindle. Moreover, once you've done this, Amazon will sync it on all of your devices, so you don't lose you place when you switch from your e-reader to your tablet to your computer.

So please stop talking about things you don't understand. Amazon is not Apple, and, again, putting e-books from other vendors is as simple as e-mailing. There is no "conversion" necessary.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by charmian

http://eoinpurcellsblog.com/2014/01/...-nook-problem/




Maybe instead of trying to market Nook tablets, B&N should be promoting the Nook app to shoppers at its stores?

The sad part is that BN were ahead of the curve with the Nook Color, they caught everybody by surprise by releasing a cheap tablet (by 2010 standards) with decent performance - they tapped a section of the market that nobody else knew was there, it took Amazon about a year to respond. Unfortunately BN did not take advantage of this lead by pushing forward and instead they've now fallen behind everybody else.

Closing their devices so their store was the only source of apps, when apps are the lifeblood of these devices, was also a terrible decision. They reversed course, but by then it was too late.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by afv011

Closing their devices so their store was the only source of apps, when apps are the lifeblood of these devices, was also a terrible decision. They reversed course, but by then it was too late.

Well, Amazon is doing the same thing, and being quite successful....