Barnes & Nobles Challenges Amazon’s Kindle Store

I’ve been closely watching the online buzz generated by Barnes & Nobles announcement regarding their eBookstore. When I first read about it, I never thought it would create that huge noise. But it did. And the reason of course is because of the fact that it is being touted as Amazon’s biggest rival yet. For one thing, B&N is one of the major players in the traditional book publishing/distribution market.So what does Barnes & Nobles has to offer to the eBook market? There’s quite a few actually, including the following:

access to 700,000 titles including new titles and bestsellers for $9.99 per title
more than a half-million public domain books from Google, which can be downloaded for free
an upgraded version of its eReader application, which supports both wireless and wired access to the new Barnes & Noble eBookstore including apps for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows and Macdesktops or laptops
free download of eBooks, including titles such as Merriam-Webster’s Pocket Dictionary,Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, Last of the Mohicans, Pride and Prejudice, and Dracula
partnership with Plastic Logic, makers of an eReader device which is set to launch in 2010 – this is being touted as the Kindle rival
The free, full-featured B&N Bookstore app for iPhone and iPod touch users, which is now the #1 downloaded book app in Apple’s App Store

Looks interesting right? The killer here will be Barnes & Nobles tie up with Plastic Logic. Once Plastic Logic’s eReader device comes out, then Amazon has something to worry about. Amazon also has an iPhone/iPod Touch app so they have this niche covered.

In the meantime, you might want to check out Barnes & Nobles eBookstore and see for yourself whether it has the right to challenge Amazon’s ebookstore business. Quite frankly, the service is actually good.

Arnold Zafra + on July 21, 2009 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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One comment on “Barnes & Nobles Challenges Amazon’s Kindle Store”

Hal on July 23, 2009 at 4:39 pm said:

I have a Kindle 2, and I had a look at what B&N has to offer. As a Kindle owner, I don’t see anything I can use. The e-books are all in Palm (PDB) binary format, which is incompatible with Kindle. I’ve looked all over – I see no way to convert the DRM protected books for Kindle. No doubt someone has hacked this, but I am not into hacking DRM media.

I have no interest in reading books on my computer. My Mac Pro is far to big to carry around for that.

I have no interest in buying another reader (Plastic Logic). B&N e-books are no less costly (a few are) than Amazon. Plastic Logic is not creating a lot of excitement at the moment. AT&T is not known for wonderful service.

I do hope there is competition that lowers the cost of books. As long as proprietary formats exist, and I don’t see that changing soon, people will buy what works for the device they own.