"Barnes & Noble holiday sales drop on Nook slump"

[pl001]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I think their mistake was trying to copy Amazon. They don't have the content available the way Amazon does, but tried to lock things down more than Amazon did. If B&N had either gotten their content offerings up to snuff or perhaps partnered with providers of other content their stuff wouldn't have felt so locked up. The Play store may have been added too late to make a big difference. With Amazon they've got it set up so that any content you buy from them (books, movies, TV, Music, etc) can be utilized in multiple ways on multiple devices.

I see what you're saying, but content was the only thing B&N had to leverage that would be profitable. Their content in books was and still is quite good. Other areas are a different story.

Somebody else mentioned that they couldn't get the Play store initially because the Nook didn't meet Google's requirements at the time. To make it meet those requirements would have meant a more expensive device with slimmer margins on content. I don't know who else they could have partnered with. Nobody had much incentive to put their products on B&N hardware, they were too busy trying to develop their own complete ecosystems with hardware, software, and services. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple have all done that. B&N was never in a position to take it that far.

[ProfCrash]

Amazon also had the benefit that developers knew the Fire would do well so they had a reason to build apps for the Fire. The board games that I play tend to come out on IOS first, then google play, then the Fire. A lot of times the Fire app comes at the same time as google play.

Granted, it is a small niche market but I would imagine that the trend is the same across the different markets. The Amazon Fire sells, people want access to that market, the developers build apps to be used on its forked version of Android.

Nook never had that same level of expectation or success so BN App store was not going to be very good. Amazon knew it would be a while before its App Store was strong enough to stand on its own so they made it easy for people to sideload apps.

[tamole]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I see someone waiting in the wings

And wouldn't it be sad if Amazon had no competition. Sad for the consumer, I mean. They could write all the rules and customers would have no choices. They've already been sued - and lost - for price-fixing ebooks.



Monopoly isn't just a game.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tamole

And wouldn't it be sad if Amazon had no competition. Sad for the consumer, I mean. They could write all the rules and customers would have no choices. They've already been sued - and lost - for price-fixing ebooks.



Monopoly isn't just a game.

I heart Kindle - the ebook standard for the US

All kidding aside, consumers always have a choice - don't buy! Monopoly crushed.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

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.

You purchase 'BOOKS' from Amazon
You purchase 'Personal Document' from others. They might look like a book to some people, but they are NOT to Amazon.

You can not synch or store these in Amazons cloud. The are Personal Documents.
Sort of makes sense: The cloud/synch is a value added service for Amazon product.

If Bezos had been clevert, he would have built in a fat $ charge for synching of any personal documents and the 'synch option' is all or nothing, so you can't e$cape the charge

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by theducks

You purchase 'BOOKS' from Amazon
You purchase 'Personal Document' from others. They might look like a book to some people, but they are NOT to Amazon.

You can not synch or store these in Amazons cloud. The are Personal Documents.
Sort of makes sense: The cloud/synch is a value added service for Amazon product.

If Bezos had been clevert, he would have built in a fat $ charge for synching of any personal documents and the 'synch option' is all or nothing, so you can't e$cape the charge

You absolutely can sync personal documents, if you store it in the Kindle Cloud. You get 5 GB.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by theducks

You can not synch or store these in Amazons cloud.

Sure you can. You can email or use send to Kindle to add them to your cloud (where they will be stored) and sync them between Kindle devices and Kindle mobile apps. You can't sync them to Kindle for PC or Mac.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pl001

That said, in all reality they were doomed from the start. It would have taken more than a few better decisions to become a true competitor to Amazon. It's easy to sit here and second-guess them, but who else has been able to seriously challenge Amazon? Nobody.

Hindsight is 20-20 but Nook's problems are legion and go back to the very first Nook.
Anybody who's been around here for a while can easily list a dozen decisions that time has proven to be counterproductive.

That said, much like Sony, B&N had all the elements to go toe-to-toe with Amazon; they just didn't use them properly and, in fact, they deprecated the two best assets they owned: FICTIONWISE and ereader DRM.

Just consider how, despite all the mistakes, they made a race of it for a couple of years. If they had played their cards right we would be looking at a very different ebook world.

[drakebelisarius]

"The company blamed the decline on fewer sales and lower average selling prices."

I love this line, I really do. "Why did you make less money?" "We sold less stuff for cheaper." "BRILLIANT!"

I honestly don't like Barnes and Noble. I was a devoted customer until they screwed me over on an accidental damage protection plan. I bought about 200 books and three different devices (nook, nook touch, nook glo) from them over the course of three years. I lost a nook glo, so I bought another with the accidental damage protection (I'm hard on my electronics). It had a factory defect that rendered it unable to charge. They were willing to exchange it in-store, so I didn't have to wait for shipping -- a huge plus for me. I was very satisfied, until I cracked the screen of the nook. Remember, I had purchased accidental damage protection. So I called B&N, and I said, "I got the damage coverage, and broke my nook." They said, "great, give us the serial number." So I did, and I got, "yeah, no. That serial number doesn't have the protection." I told them what had happened, and they said, "yeah, we have that on record, but it still doesn't transfer." I went up and down the food chain, and got nothing. When my nook broke due to a factory defect, the damage coverage didn't transfer.

So I have little sympathy.

[NickyWithNook]

Yes, I think customer service is B&N's biggest problem.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

Yes, I think customer service is B&N's biggest problem.

And Amazon's biggest strength. (Well, both their effectiveness and B&N's failure is their strength.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And Amazon's biggest strength. (Well, both their effectiveness and B&N's failure is their strength.)

Makes the spread bigger and more effective.

[mws]

I think their new Glowlight is a step backwards. The Nook Simple Touch w/Glowlight had page buttons, and an SD card slot for side loading. The new Glowlight doesn't have buttons or an SD card, and they even got rid of the little holes to lock the covers into. It appears they didn't want to be better than a Kindle, just equal. The device needs to be superior to the competition, because the real money is made selling books.

I have been frustrated in my attempts to talk to someone at corporate, to no avail. I was able to send an email to Jeff Bezos at Amazon.

Good thing I have a Nook HD, where I can load Kindle, Kobo and other eReader SW.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by mws

I think their new Glowlight is a step backwards. The Nook Simple Touch w/Glowlight had page buttons, and an SD card slot for side loading. The new Glowlight doesn't have buttons or an SD card, and they even got rid of the little holes to lock the covers into.

I already knew that I wasn't going to buy the new Glowlight because the SD card slot is a deal breaker for me (I have over 16 GB of books in my library now), but if the new Glowlight is the same form factor as the Simple Touch and can't use my existing book cover, it's just pathetic. Why did they even bother releasing it?

[ProfCrash]

My guess? That wanted to remove the card slot so that people would be more tied to BN due to the space partitions. They don't want people buying the device and side loading books, or at least making it more difficult for people.