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Report on Nook news conference: B&N switching to ePub—plus other news conf tidbits
October 20, 2009 | 4:20 pm
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By Paul Biba
Related: Friend-to-friend lending, Android operating system and other Nook details, with links to the B&N site. Also see the latest info on the DRM compatibility issue (I’ve revised this note because of it). The best DRM is none. – D.R.
By PAUL BIBA
NEW YORK- I’m sitting here at the Conference waiting for it to begin. There will be Welcome by Steve Riggio, Chief Executive Officer of B&N, then and Introduction and Overview by William Lynch, President, Highlights by Tony Astarita, VP Device Development and Douglas Gottlieb, VP Digital Products, Closing Remarks by Lynch and then a video. Scheduled to start at 4:15 and end at 5PM.
Welcome
Entire B&N management team is present. BN is an innovator – first bookseller to discount books; perfected the book superstore concept. First online bookseller, first to offer free shipping, first to offer and sell ebooks and Rocket ebook reader. $30 billion industry and larger than music and movie business. Analysts just beginning to forecast about digital and BN recognizes that customers want ebooks. A multibillion dollar strategy. Opened a Palo Alto office of engineers.
Introduction and Overview
Many presidents from the publishing industry in the audience. Want to get consumers any book, magazine or content on the device of their choosing. Offer over a million books on the store. Had over a million downloads of eReader app. Will work with the new Que Plastic Logic device. Saw need for a fun, easy to use, personizeable device. Most full featured device on the market. Has wifi, android platform and digital lending.
Highlights
They will discuss the features. Minimalist design. Color touch screen to speed through reader’s own collection or the ebook store. Actual covers used. Viewe changes to adapt to what the user is doing. Goes dark while reading so not distracting. 6″ display. 16 levels grey scales 5 fonts SD slot 3G PDF and WiFi. Sample books for free and get recommendations.
Share the book from Nook to Nook. Lend for a defined period. Will sync your book and place to iPhone and Blackberry and include annotations. Devices will update each other. Can add your own backgrounds and have all sorts of backs and accessories from designer labels. Can be found at Nook.com
Closing Remarks
Leveraging on their retail stores and college bookstores. Sold at their stores and will sell at $259. Will have exclusive in-store content with WiFi, including browsing complete ebooks. Ship at end of November and will take pre-orders today.
Q and A
They didn’t give many details during the presentations so maybe we’ll get some more now.
Epub? Consumers won’t know the difference. Will move to support epub cause of better compatibility but consumer really won’t know. Will be epub going forward and partnering with Adobe. When device ships transition should be done.
Device will sync with more devices than Kindle – over 100 devices and will have an app for Nokia.
Android – is it locked? Liked it cause good for navigating on small screens. and looking forward to new apps on this device. No announcement on app development but there will be.
Will support legacy Fictionwise devices. EPUB, pdb and PDF. Licensing Adobe SKD and ACS and will be password protected.
No browser on the device cause is a clumsy experience. Lending can be to an Nook, PC, iPhone, Mac, etc.
No plans to sell at other retailers.
Looking at going global.
Can you match Amazon? They are not taking cues from Amazon.
In store can browse but not download. Streaming technology.
Wifi can only be used in store for events and in store content. Plan to open up later on.
Lending is for 14 days and can lend out unlimited number. Color screen will not degrade battery life and comparable to other units. When lend a book the owner won’t have access to it. Will be noted in the store when a book is lendable.
Will hold 2GB, or 1,700 books and can expand through SD slot.
Will have daily content that will be sent to the reader. Will be putting other applications on the device. Capacitive touch, same as iPhone.
Can side load content if it is in EPUB.
Can subscribe to periodicals which will be published in EPUB.
No announcement on reader software for Android.
Will mount as a USB device.
BN is committed to be competitive on pricing.
Are plans to bundle hardcover and ebooks.
Will eventually support Windows Mobile.
This was all done in real time at the conference. Please pardon any typos or unusual sentence structures.
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Comments:
Just wondering what flavour of ePub this is going to be. DRM’d ePub or the open ePub the rest of us like.
Additional Press Release:
http://newsblaze.com/story/2009102014314000002.bw/topstory.html
Just picked up from an email. Thanks, Jim. I’d rather you err on the side of alerting us. While I’m not thrilled with DRM, it is good news that apparently B&N customers can use the same files on different brands of readers. Or am I wrong about that? Perhaps you can clarify.
Thanks,
David
Adobe DRM and 5 font size support suggests ADE is the reader app for EPUB and PDF. If so, it should be compatible with other devices fed via desktop ADE.
Adobe DRM and 5 font size support suggests ADE is the reader app for EPUB and PDF. If so, it should be compatible with other devices fed via desktop ADE.
Direct pdf reading alone has me sold on the device’s superiority over the Kindle. I prefer the ePub format, DRM or not. The lending feature is a nice way of saying “Publishers won’t let us remove DRM but you can share a bit.”
I’m not going to rush out and buy one just yet on the the Press Release. I’m doing fine with my Kindle. The added features don’t seem like much. The color touch screen seems more gussied up than functional. The lending feature might make some people happy, but since I’m not much of a loaner or loanee, I probably wouldn’t have much use for it. So what if I can sync to my MacBook Pro–I don’t use the laptop to read books.
Without seeing the Nookie in action, I’m only guessing, of course, but I’m skeptical about true error-free readability of a fixed page format PDF on a 6″ eink screen. A reader would have to tolerate occasional to frequent formatting errors in the text, but some people might have low standards of acceptability.
The Nookie might be worth a closer look just in case I’ll need a second ereader, though I’m kind of holding out to see if there is ever an Apple tablet and what that will be able to do.
I give them kudos just for supporting multiple and legacy devices (it is a rather odd statement about “upcoming” support for Windows Mobile, when WM runs eReader already… unless they are planning on adopting the new eReader to read ePub files or something). I just bought “Busted Flush” from their store a week ago, which is 100% more e-books than I’ve bought from Amazon…