Barnes & Noble Inc.
October 18, 2012
Despite its almost mythical dominance in book retailing, Amazon has struggled mightily to crack the publishing business. While it sells millions of copies of other publishers’ books, Amazon can’t quite seem to get its own books off the ground and onto the bestseller charts, according to a recent Wall Street Journal piece that examined the online retailer’s publishing woes.
Case in point: Penny Marshall’s memoir, “My Mother Was Nuts.”
October 16, 2012
Following months of speculation and rumors, Apple released on Tuesday press invitations for its next big launch: the iPad Mini.
The event will be held in on Tuesday, Oct. 23 in San Jose, Calif. The invite says: “We’ve got a little more to show you.”
The invitation-only event will be held at the California Theatre in San Jose on October 23 at 10:00 a.m. PT.
October 15, 2012
Amazon.com is in advanced negotiations to buy the mobile chip business of Texas Instruments, according to Israeli newspaper Calcalist, which would put the online retail giant on the path to becoming a manufacturer of smartphone and tablet processors.
However, the report generated a healthy dose of skepticism among users of Stocktwits.
October 15, 2012
It sometimes feels like the price-fixing settlement between e-book publishers and the government has been stretching on for forever. But it now seems Amazon is prepping Kindle customers for a potential, partial refund if they bought e-books between April 2010 and May 2012. That is if the court approves the settlements in various states.
PCWorld says customers could be getting back anywhere from $0.30 to $1.32 per e-book from Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Those publishers agreed to paying $69 million into a fund for the settlement.
October 4, 2012
Many ebook buying consumers in 49 states will soon receive payments as a result of the states’ settlement with publishers HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster. The states have provided a few more details about how those payments will work and have changed some things slightly.
In a document filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the states’ attorneys lay out two modifications to their original settlement:
October 4, 2012
New York, NY and Redmond, WA (October 4, 2012) – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced the completion of their previously announced strategic partnership in NOOK Media LLC, a recently formed Barnes & Noble subsidiary and a leader in the emerging digital reading and digital education markets. Microsoft and Barnes & Noble’s strategic partnership in NOOK Media LLC will enable the companies to advance world-class digital reading experiences to the hundreds of millions of customers they jointly serve.
October 2, 2012
Yesterday, shoppers discovered that Barnes & Noble is carrying books from Amazon Publishing’s New York imprint in stores around the country, despite the company’s insistence that it wouldn’t do so.
Following our story’s publication yesterday, I learned that Barnes & Noble headquarters sent an email to its branches around the country telling them to pull the Amazon titles. This morning, a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman told me, “Our policy has not changed. We are not carrying Amazon titles.”
September 27, 2012
“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling’s new book for adults, The Casual Vacancy, was published yesterday to great fanfare and decidedly mixed reviews. Some ebook readers are holding on off on purchasing the digital edition because it’s priced at $17.99 (here’s why), but e-reader owners who did buy it right away are in for a disappointment: It’s basically unreadable, unless you have a magnifying glass.
September 26, 2012
Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) two new Android Wi-Fi tablets, the 7-inch Nook HD and 9-inch Nook HD+, aim to compete with other moderately priced tablets such as Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7. The Nook tablets, starting at $199 coming available in October, differentiate themselves most from competitors when it comes to some new reading and “discoverability” features.
“We’re Barnes & Noble, and books is one of our main categories,” Theresa Horner, B&N’s vice president of digital content, said at a briefing on Tuesday.
September 25, 2012
Last year when it launched its Nook Tablet Barnes & Noble strongly hinted that it was looking to add a video service to the device that would allow users to buy and rent movies and television shows.
Well, it took a little longer than expected, but today the company has announced that it's launching Nook Video this fall in the U.S. and the UK this "holiday season" with content from major studios, including HBO, Sony, Starz, and Warner Bros, and Disney.
