Nook Survey - New Nook ereader?

[barryem]

I've had several Nooks of various types over the years. I currently have a couple of HD's and HD+'s. They have clumsy rather poorly designed interfaces and their a pain at times to use but for their price they're still excellent.

Barry

[murg]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Hard to say.
Incompetence?
Hubris?
Fear of cannibalizing their storefronts?
Too much brownnosing the BPHs?

I favor hubris, myself.

All of the above?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murg

All of the above?

Wouldn't that be piling on?

My theory is that if they hadn't been so frackin' full of themselves, they wouldn't have committed the rest of the missteps. At best they were not-quite close followers but they tried to pretend they were market leaders. Too often they did stupid things for their PR value, without regard for the economic consequences.

[Dr. Drib]

I've always wondered what would happen to any business model such as B&N and all the issues they are having, and simply hired one of us to come and help them.

What that accelerate the business's collapse, or possibly save them?

[cgsmom]

I agree with the comments here that B&N are essentially out of the ebook market by their own doing. I haven't bought a Nook since the HD+ price was slashed. I still use it and will until it dies. But I have no plans to buy another Nook. I haven't bought any books from them in a while. I just don't understand why I haven't seen anything about this survey anywhere else. Was I the only one that got it?

[pdurrant]

I have a nook Simpletouch Glowlight. It's OK. I have a B&N nook account with around 1500 books. But I doubt that I'll ever buy another ebook from B&N. Because their web site (UK version) doesn't actually allow me to access all my books! Only through installing nook Study was I actually able to download all the books transferred over from Fictionwise.

Even my physical device can't show all the books in my account. (NB not download them all, but it can't even show them all to me!)

And yes, I have raised this with them, and I get no helpful responses.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I've always wondered what would happen to any business model such as B&N and all the issues they are having, and simply hired one of us to come and help them.

What that accelerate the business's collapse, or possibly save them?

Actually, a lot of companies do exactly that.
Microsoft, Amazon, pretty much all movie studios, politicians...
(Focus groups, usability labs, suggestion "boxes". Amazon famously acts on consumer suggestions. Sometimes Bezos himself.)

It comes under the heading of market research: finding out what consumers want and will willingly buy/accept. That way you can sell what people want with reduced resistance.

Publishing tends do operate in the opposite direction, they are more concerned with marketing: convincing people to buy what they sell.

As for handing the keys to somebody from around here as a consultant, well, results will vary. Some folks here know business and tech as well as reading. Others, just books. But if they asked *all* of Mobileread and "averaged" the advice, they'd likely do very well.

Lots of wisdom round here.
And more than a bit of common sense.

(You can test it yourself: start a thread about listing things B&N did that were wrong *at the time they did them*.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I have a nook Simpletouch Glowlight. It's OK. I have a B&N nook account with around 1500 books. But I doubt that I'll ever buy another ebook from B&N. Because their web site (UK version) doesn't actually allow me to access all my books! Only through installing nook Study was I actually able to download all the books transferred over from Fictionwise.

Even my physical device can't show all the books in my account. (NB not download them all, but it can't even show them all to me!)

And yes, I have raised this with them, and I get no helpful responses.

Does the Nook android app show them?
You could hack it and install Nook for Android.
(And yes, even thinking it speaks volumes about Nook, no?)

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, a lot of companies do exactly that.
Microsoft, Amazon, pretty much all movie studios, politicians...
(Focus groups, usability labs, suggestion "boxes". Amazon famously acts on consumer suggestions. Sometimes Bezos himself.)

It comes under the heading of market research: finding out what consumers want and will willingly buy/accept. That way you can sell what people want with reduced resistance.

Publishing tends do operate in the opposite direction, they are more concerned with marketing: convincing people to buy what they sell.

As for handing the keys to somebody from around here as a consultant, well, results will vary. Some folks here know business and tech as well as reading. Others, just books. But if they asked *all* of Mobileread and "averaged" the advice, they'd likely do very well.

Lots of wisdom round here.
And more than a bit of common sense.

(You can test it yourself: start a thread about listing things B&N did that were wrong *at the time they did them*.)

That's a good idea , fjtorres , I think it would be interesting to read what Mobile Readers think happened to B&N. I'll start a thread

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, a lot of companies do exactly that.
Microsoft, Amazon, pretty much all movie studios, politicians...
(Focus groups, usability labs, suggestion "boxes". Amazon famously acts on consumer suggestions. Sometimes Bezos himself.)

Well, I find Amazon really needs to work on their user interface. It's not that special and finding things you don't know you want is not as good as it should be. When I search for an item and it's available in different departments because that's how it's listed, I want to be able to sort without having to select a specific department. There are other UI fails too that Amazon has. Most eBook stores also have UI fail. That includes Google. So it's not just Amazon, but Amazon is the biggest one to fail.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, I find Amazon really needs to work on their user interface. It's not that special and finding things you don't know you want is not as good as it should be. When I search for an item and it's available in different departments because that's how it's listed, I want to be able to sort without having to select a specific department. There are other UI fails too that Amazon has. Most eBook stores also have UI fail. That includes Google. So it's not just Amazon, but Amazon is the biggest one to fail.

Sure.
I've never said Amazon is perfect.
After all, I do 90% of my reading in fbReader and 60% of my buying at BAEN.

But I would point out that Amazon runs a (mostly) unified storefront that sells dry goods, electronics, and digital products.

Feature commonality across the entire storefront is important so a lot of complaints, like this...

http://writerscircle.com/2014/04/aut...s-process.html

...will be ignored. On purpose and for good reason: reviews are for the shoppers not the vendors. (I actually saw a call for a law forbidding product reviews on online stores.)

On the device front, the "failings" of the software may not always be failings in their eyes. Kindles tend to adhere to two overriding design principles: stability above all and K.I.S.S.

Market research and listening to customers doesn't mean either gets the last word. Given the maturity of the Kindle line and the sheer size of Lab126, I'd ssy that if Kindles lack a specific feature it is mostly going to be because they think the added value doesn't justify the cost. (Which might be in the form of a hit to simplicity.)

Now, if I cared enough about Kindle feature sets, what I would recommend is making the onboard reading app modal, with the default app about what it is now and a second mode(or app) hidden under EXPERIMENTAL with features up the wazoo, ala fbReader or Coolreader. One size doesn't fit all but two might.

[NickyWithNook]

I didn't get an email. I did just recently take advantage of their current trade-in program (until June 13 I think) and traded in an old Nook Color toward the Samsung tablet marketed as a Nook Tablet. It's an awesome tablet, but I wouldn't have gotten it without the trade-in program (I got $50 off) or if I couldn't use the Kindle app and Scribd on it. I have a lot of old ebooks from B&N but I have had bad experiences with their customer service and I can't imagine buying any new ebooks from them.

[disconnected]

I got the survey email dated June 4 but I didn't get around to looking at it until today, June 7, and the survey is already closed. It seems like a short time but for all I know it's common to have a survey active for only a couple of days.

[Rich_D]

If they got rid of the partitioned memory or brought back the SD card, I'd probably go back to them. I really liked my ST Glow.

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by Rich_D

If they got rid of the partitioned memory or brought back the SD card, I'd probably go back to them. I really liked my ST Glow.

I agree, as to the hardware. Still using my Simple Touch; still going strong.

But I've decided to just buy DRM-free books, and they are easier to download from Kobo.