When I was a kid, we went to the library to browse books. I had no particular idea what I was looking for; I just loved walking up and down the aisles finding the unexpected.
Borders Group
The book publishing industry may be in flux right now, but 2010 was a very good year for Random House Inc.
The saga of the Borders bookstore chain has entered a forlorn new chapter. In December, Borders attempted to buy Barnes & Noble, its biggest (and better) competitor; last month, having failed, it filed for bankruptcy.
While not a surprise to anyone who had followed the book retailer's recent financial struggles, the official announcement yesterday that Borders Group had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy still caused a stir throughout the book publishing industry, as publishers, retailers, authors and consumers speculated about what this development could mean for the future of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
(Press Release) ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 16, 2011, PRNewswire via COMTEX—
"It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and other vendor related parties, and the company's lack of liquidity, Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor and which are essential for it to move forward with its business strategy to reposition itself successfully for the long term.
Kobo, the only pure-play global eReading service built on an open platform, today revealed its Holiday 2010 momentum. This Christmas, readers around the world received new eReaders and iPads and other eReading devices under their tree. Over a million people connected to Kobo, and hundreds of thousands of devices were activated each day since Christmas Eve, fuelling the highest eBook download rate in the company’s history.
(Press Release) TORONTO, ON, December 9, 2010—Kobo, a global eReading service where users can read on any device anywhere in the world, today announced the launch of Reading Life, an industry first social eReading experience.
Borders Group today launched the "Borders Customer Commitment" program, a new customer satisfaction initiative.
Borders Group today announced it will open 25 seasonal Borders Express stores nationwide to serve customers during the holiday season.
At BlackBerry DEVCON 2010, Kobo announced the development of an industry-first social eReading experience and released a video of the social reading app in action.