Barnes & Noble Inc.

Looking to practice what he preaches about digital media, Michael Wolf, v-p of research at GigaOM, a technology news and analysis blog, has launched Bstsllr.com, an e-book publishing house specializing in crime and mystery fiction. The house released an anthology, , in October and plans a new anthology of East coast crime writers in Spring 2012. GigaOM is a technology blog founded by tech writer Om Malik in 2006. Looking to compete with analytics firms like Forrester Research, GigaOM hired Wolf as media analyst in 2009. In addition to writing about digital media, Wolf also helps run the GigaOM

The Kindle Fire, Amazon?s color touchscreen tablet, is flying off the virtual shelves, the company says. Its price tag is $200 — and that’s all many consumers think they need to know.But when I reviewed the Fire a few weeks ago, I wasn’t what you’d call a raving fan. True, it has no camera, microphone, GPS function, Bluetooth, memory-card slot, or built-in calendar or note pad. But the real problem was the responsiveness. As I wrote:“Most problematic, though, the Fire doesn’t have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. You feel that $200 price tag with every

(BUSINESS WIRE) -- --Presented In The Original Japanese Right-To-Left Reading Format Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of digital media and educational products, today announced that it has teamed up with VIZ Media, LLC, the largest distributor and publisher of anime and manga in North America, to bring the digital manga (graphic novel) experience to NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color customers. Debuting in the NOOK Store(TM) today, VIZ Media's collection includes 18 series, featuring 107 volumes, from its popular Shojo Beat, Shonen Sunday and VIZ Signature imprints. Volumes are available for purchase and fast download in

Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire has understandably dominated the e-reader buzz this holiday season. Not everyone, though, wants all the bells and whistles, or the bulk and expense, of a full-on color tablet. They just want an e-reader in order to, you know, read. For these folks, Amazon and Barnes & Noble Inc. have released updated versions of their monochrome e-readers. Meanwhile, Sony Corp., which introduced its latest Sony Reader earlier in the year, has slashed its price twice this month, to the point where you may be able to get one for as little as

The Bookseller reports that Theresa Horner, vice-president for digital content at Barnes & Noble, has announced that the Nook will be coming to the United Kingdom in the “not too distant future.” Though B&N hasn’t determined whether it will be partnering with a UK company or creating its own UK presence, it is seriously considering expanding now that it has created “a successful platform in the US to work from.”

There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader.

Let’s find out! Research firm IDC released its Q3 2011 report on media tablet shipments today. You’ll recall that the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet were not released until Q4 2011, making the firm’s report today somewhat less juicy but containing some interesting tidbits nonetheless. The company estimates that Android tablets will make up 40.3 percent of market share for media tablets in Q4, with Apple’s iPad slipping to 59.7 percent.

COMMENTARY: Amazon (AMNZ), which usually doesn't get too specific about details of its sales, apparently felt the need to crow about the Kindle. The company claims to have sold 1 million a week for the past three weeks. It's hot news, fueled in no small part by the Kindle Fire tablet. But while Amazon congratulates itself and tries to intimidate would-be competitors, publishers are potentially pouring cold water on the retailer's ardor. E-book prices are rising, according to a Wall Street Journal report. And that could come back to hurt Amazon, as well as Barnes & Noble (BKS), as

Peter Meyers, author of “Kindle Fire: The Missing Manual,” said the Fire’s not made for Apple’s customers. My article in The New York Times on Monday citing high levels of dissatisfaction with Amazon’s new tablet generated a torrential response, much of it from people who said they loved their Kindle Fires. The wilder commentators suggested that the whole article somehow came from Apple, which, in their view, was trying to get people to hock grandma’s jewels to buy $500 iPads. None of those conspiracy theorists explained why so many original users of the Fire put mixed to negative reviews

Buying books on Amazon is better for authors, better for the economy, and better for you. The independent bookstore is not the last stronghold of literary culture you think it is Jupiterimages/Thinkstock. Amazon just did a boneheaded thing, and it deserves all the scorn you want to heap on it. Last week, the company offered people cash in exchange for going into retail stores and scanning items using the company’s Price Check smartphone app. If you scanned a product and then purchased it from Amazon rather than the shop you were standing in, Amazon would give you a 5

Now that electronic readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook have been on the market for a few years, long enough to become cheaper and more ubiquitous than ever, it’s no wonder that e-books have proliferated like mad.

Earlier this year, Amazon reported that its e-books for the Kindle were outselling regular books on its website, and Barnes & Noble shared the perhaps depressing news (for brick and mortar booksellers, anyway) that it sells three times as many e-books on BN.com as it does all categories of physical books combined.