IS NOOK MOVING? IS NOOK BYE BYE?

The New York Times wrote an article about Nook (it's still odd not to write "the Nook") and where it's headed. It said "Barnes & Noble has acknowledged that the Nook has not been profitable, leaving investors anxious about the future costs tied to it, with the need to develop new software and hardware and to advertise the products. By one analyst’s estimate, Barnes & Noble spends $200 million to $250 million annually on its Nook operations." Every good product needs TIME to grow, but what this article indicates, is that the investors do not have the patience to wait. Hmmm. "Barnes & Noble’s stock has fallen 30 percent in the last 12 months. The company attributed the revision primarily to lower-than-expected sales of its black-and-white Nook devices, acknowledging that it had ordered too many of them."

"One possibility is that Barnes & Noble could sell part of the Nook business to the public and maintain a majority ownership stake. Mr. Lynch did not rule out the option of selling the Nook business entirely." Another of their ideas is to open up a separate boutique for Nook devices. That would be crazy in my opinion. For one, people who come into the stores to look for book products find themselves looking at Nook readers and vice versa. They'd be losing that synergy. Second, they spent a ton of money making those lovely Nook centers VERY RECENTLY! What a waste of money!

Badly managed? Bad plans? I think so. I think B&N is just staggering along and not thinking of a long term plan - having a map from day one if you will. And they should have. Think of Apple. They clearly were modeling Nook centers after Apple. Apple took years and years and years to get to where they are now! You can't give it two years and hope to make some bang huge profit. And what about the bookstore aspect? Do they abandon Nook and go back to selling books again like before? Half their stores look like toy stores and gift shops at this point. How does all of this get fixed? I'm worried.

B&N NOOK UNDER FIRE

B&N is being sued by Spring Design for "stealing" design features now existing in the Nook. I'd known about this for a while and had read the actual court documents via Wikileaks. But apparently the lawsuit is going forward. The judge this month said there is enough evidence to go to trial. I don't like this!!! (I have my reasons).

FROM PC WORLD NOV 2009:
"According to court documents, Spring Design first presented their design for Alex to a Barnes & Noble consultant on February 17, 2009 – five days after both sides signed a non-disclosure agreement. On March 20, Spring Design met with Ravi Gopalakrishnan, head of B&N software development, who allegedly told Spring executives that B&N wanted a product that would compete with the Kindle.

"In April and May, Spring Design met with other B&N executives, including William Lynch, president of B&N.com and Kevin Frain, B&N's CFO. Lynch and Frain were given a product demo and shown a PowerPoint presentation for an Android-based e-reader known as Alex.

"Lynch warned Spring's Albert Teng that he should not consider Amazon as a content partner, because Amazon was likely to steal Spring's unique idea without ever buying anything from Spring," according to court documents.

"Thanks for coming and showing us your innovative work," Lynch wrote in an e-mail after the meeting. "Kevin [Frain] owns these partnerships and I know he's excited to work with you. Looking forward."

In July, B&N requested a summary of Spring's product development and on October 1, B&N had a meeting with Spring's CEO to discuss possible revenue sharing for Spring's Alex device in the university textbook market."

LAW 360 SAYS:
In his Dec. 27 opinion Judge Ware said the evidence B&N and Spring submitted showed "extensive dispute" over whether prior e-reader devices had "disclosed all aspects of plaintiff's trade secrets" and that the evidence was divided on whether B&N had developed the Nook independently.

"Comparing the specific features of the Nook with [Spring's] alleged trade secrets is a fact-intensive task best left to a jury," the judge said.

In December 2009, Judge Ware denied Spring's motion for a preliminary injunction in the suit, allowing B&N to market the Nook while the lawsuit continued. At the time, the judge found that Spring had not shown sufficient likelihood of success on its merits or that an injunction would be in the public interest."

What will become of all of this? What if B&N couldn't make the Nook anymore? Would they go back to focusing on what they did prior? PRINTED BOOKS? What if what they owed was too great? Can the industry survive without this giant? I know on a personal level I cannot. Hmmm.

My own vote is that the Nook looks far better than Alex design wise. So whether features were taken or not, they definitely improved upon things. And as you know, I'm not a fan of e-readers - but if I HAD to pick one, I would pick the Nook. It looks better. I always go by looks. I would pick the iPad but it's too big/heavy to carry around and therefore doesn't work for reading purposes. It works more as a laptop without the keyboard.

What would you pick?

E READERS FOR KIDS - LIKE WATCHING TV?

If you've been following my posts you may have guessed that I'm not a big fan of e-readers. I have my reasons. This is another reason why I think they're problematic:

B&N's Nook folk have designed applications for its reader and for the iPad: "Where the best children's stories come to life." Their re-design of classic books has made them "come to life" so much so that you may as well just pop in a DVD and forget the book entirely.

Here's an example:

GO, DOG, GO!, which is a beginning reader, starts out in a male voice--"There they go... Look at those dogs go!..."



And as the voice prattles on the screen zooms in on the image:



Hmmm. Where did the text go? As a beginning reader, I think the text probably needs to be present for the child to learn how to read. As is, the "book" presents itself more as a movie... or it tries its darndest to be one. It's too bad, isn't it? It's unfortunate that all books don't eradicate all of their words and just have omniscient voices that shout out from their speaker boxes and characters that animate themselves from behind the plastic screens for the children of America.

1) I had a hard time learning to read. This will take the pressure off other kids. Perhaps they won't get an eye twitch like I did.
2) We don't need more literacy, do we?