The Nook HD and HD+ got a great update late last night (via Engadget), as Barnes & Noble finally moved away from its closed and system-specific app and media ecosystem. The two Android tablets now offer Google Play, and new devices will ship with the app pre-loaded, while existing owners can get it via a software update over-the-air or via direct download.

Other changes with this update include the introduction of some stock Android apps, including Gmail, Maps and Chrome (which replaces the Nook’s existing web browser as the default option). Essentially, Barnes & Noble is turning the Nook HD line into a very cheap Android tablet play, and not in the limited way it was doing so before.

Where once the Nook brand was a reader first, with Android-powered full-color readers with some tablet functionality, now it looks like we’ll see Barnes & Noble embrace the tablet identity much more fully. Another sign that the book seller is banking on tablets as a much broader attempt at reaching customers is the fact that the Nook Tablet and Color don’t get the Play update, meaning we could see those left behind in terms of future hardware updates.

John took a look at the updated Nook HD+, and found it impressive, especially at $269, or a full $60 cheaper than the cheapest iPad (16GB Wi-Fi iPad mini). The problem, though, was summed up in John’s conclusion: the Nook HD+ is a great upgrade as a reader, but not necessarily a real tablet competitor. Opening up the broader Android software market place and its selection of tablet apps definitely helps to change that.

The Nook line could be the key to Barnes & Noble’s future, but right now it’s also a weight hanging around its neck, as slow sales of the Simple Touch e-reader prompted a fire sale to help move more HD+ inventory, and the Nook division lost cash in the most recent fiscal quarter. There’s still an opportunity for a cheap Android tablet to capture the hearts and minds of consumers, however, and Nook is now in a better position to capitalize on that now that its ecosystem wall has come down.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble has reported Q3 2013 earnings for the fiscal three-month period ending January 31, with a loss of $0.18 per share on quarterly revenues of $2.2 billion. That’s down 8.8 percent from the same period last year, when B&N reported gains of $0.71 per share.

Net losses in Q3 totaled $6.1 million, a clear drop from net earnings of $52 million a year ago.

Analysts predicted revenues of $2.4 billion, and an EPS of $.54. Last quarter saw revenues of $1.9 billion and losses of $0.04 per share.

Q3 has been a messy one for the retailer, which started out as a college text book store. The holiday period, which is usually a sure spike for retailers, left Barnes & Noble with a 10.9 percent sales decrease on B&N retail and BN.com from the same time last year. B&N blames this on declining Nook hardware sales at its retail locations.

Reports are floating around that Barnes & Noble may spin out its Nook hardware business, or perhaps focus its OEM vision on partnerships with Microsoft.

Barnes & Noble denies the reports, with CEO William Lynch stating today that the company is adjusting the Nook strategy and righting the segment’s cost structure. But based on the widening losses compared to Barnes & Noble’s glory days, a drastic change could be needed.

The Nook segment had revenues of $311 million during the nine-week period ending December 29, which was a 12.6 percent decrease from last year’s holiday Nook sales. All in all, Q3 saw a 26 percent YOY drop in Nook retail.

Barnes & Noble announced on January 28 that it would shutter nearly 1/3 of its retail stores, bringing its total number of locations from 689 to between 450 and 500 over the next decade.

Luckily, digital content sales rose 13.1 percent over that same nine-week holiday period, indicating that a departure from hardware and a focus on digital products could be the saving grace for the company.

The company also said on Valentine’s Day that it expected the Nook business to post an increased full-year loss, exceeding the $262 million loss seen in fiscal 2012. Though, B&N also expected losses to be less than $3 billion.

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Barnes & Noble has put up an excellent fight over the past few years against the rising tide of digital competitors like iPad, Kindle Fire, etc.

But it would seem that the bookseller has still come up a bit short, as the Wall Street Journal reports that the company has plans to shut down nearly 20 stores per year over the course of the next decade.

Just last week, we learned that B&N had a rough holiday sales season with a 10.9 percent sales decrease over last year’s holiday season.

Barnes & Noble currently has around 689 retail stores in operation, but the cuts would eliminate around a third of those stores, leaving the total somewhere between 450 to 500 stores.

However, Barnes & Noble’s Mitchell Klipper, who delivered the news to the WSJ, explains that less than 3 percent of B&N stores lose money. Still, shutting down stores is expected to strengthen B&N’s hardware business, including the Nook HD and Nook HD+, which has been a growing focus at the company.

In the face of such a digital shift, it would appear that the bookseller expects its brick-and-mortar business to become more and more of a liability over the coming years.

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Literary retailer Barnes & Noble reported its fiscal Q2 2013 earnings this morning, and they’re just a bit stronger than some had forecasted in the days leading up to the release.

The company reported a loss of $0.04 per share on quarterly revenues of $1.9 billion (down 0.4% from the year-ago quarter) — analysts on the other hand expected to see losses of about $0.09 per share on revenues of $1.88 billion. Barnes & Noble also recorded net earnings of $2 million this past quarter, a considerable jump over its loss of $7 million in the year-ago quarter.

A quick look at the rest of the release reveals relatively minor gains and losses across the board. The company’s retail business for instance sunk slightly from last year and only generated $996 million in revenue, a dip that BN attributes mostly to store closures and a downturn in books both in stores and on BN.com. Meanwhile, BN’s college business — the side that handles textbook sales on college campuses — grew a paltry 0.4% year-over-year.

The standout here (to the extent that there is one) is none other than Barnes & Noble’s Nook business — it raked in $160 million in revenues, a 6% jump from Q2 2012. Barnes & Noble also opted to take a particularly frustrating page out of rival Amazon’s playbook by noting that Nook sales doubled over the Black Friday weekend without any numbers to back up the claim.

Perhaps more importantly, the company saw its digital content sales surge 38% over its performance last year, a strong sign of a digital shift is underway for a considerable chunk of the company’s customers. Exactly how beneficial that sort of shift can be for Nook users (and e-book aficionados in general) is still questionable though, as there are still pervasive and annoying issues that pop up when a company’s DRM is too overzealous.

One crucial thing to note is that this BN’s second quarter ended in October, so the biggest holiday gains are yet to come. The company’s most recent e-readers, the Nook HD and its brother the Nook HD+, were launched just after the quarter closed, so we’ll have to wait until next quarter to see how far BN’s next big hardware push took them.

BN will be holding its customary earnings conference call at 10AM Eastern, and I’ll update this post once the company’s brass start getting chatty.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD and Nook HD+ have gone on sale in the U.K. today, landing on shelves in retailers John Lewis, Argos, Asda, Dixons, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles, and available via www.nook.co.uk.

In the battle of the mini tablets, the 8GB model of the 7-inch Nook HD undercuts the iPad mini’s price-tag by more than £100 — with a £159 price-tag vs the iPad mini’s starter price of £269. The Nook HD also offers a higher resolution than the iPad mini, with a 243 pixel per inch screen versus 163ppi for Apple’s mini slate. The Nook HD is powered by a 1.3GHz dual-core processor.

The larger Nook HD+ has a nine inch display, with a full HD resolution (256ppi), and starts at £229 for the 16GB model. Under the hood is a 1.5GHz dual-core chip.

Of course, buying a tablet is far more about buying into an ecosystem than buying a slate-shaped slice of hardware — which explains the enduring popularity of Apple’s iPad. On the ecosystem front, the Nook tablets have access to the ~2.5 million books on the Nook Store, plus “a large selection of magazines and apps” (vs 275,000 native iPad apps, at the last Apple count). In early December the Nooks will also gain access to Nook Video: aka “a broad collection of popular films and TV shows available for purchase or rental”.

Barnes & Noble’s tablets are also competing with Amazon’s seven inch £159 Kindle Fire HD tablet in the U.K. Barnes & Noble notes that the Nook HD is more than a fifth lighter and a centimeter narrower than Kindle Fire HD slate, weighing in at 315g. The company also claims the Nook HD’s processor is “smoother and faster” than the Kindle Fire HD — claiming graphics processing is 80 percent faster.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble is shutting down Fictionwise, a company running several eBook websites, including Fictionwise.com, eReader.com, and eBookwise.com. Although the move shouldn’t be all that surprising in a world of Amazon Kindles, iBookstores, and of course, B&N’s own Nook library, it’s worth a tip of our hat to these sites that laid the groundwork for the digital e-reading revolution.

Fictionwise, launched in 2000 and was acquired by B&N in March 2009 for $15.7 million, as the company planned its move into the ebooks space with the Nook tablet and accompanying bookstore. B&N announced the Nook in October 2009, and released it the following month, but these ebook outposts have still been up-and-running in all the time since. The sites operated as a standalone business unit under founders Scott and Steve Pendergrast, who had first shopped the company around, but chose B&N because it would agree to uphold Fictionwise’s support for DRM-free, multi-format ebook software standards.

At the time of the acquisition, Fictionwise offered ebooks in multiple formats, including Palm, Rocket and Microsoft Reader, for example. Customers could read books on their phones, and the sites even offered a lending platform libraries and groups as far back as 2002.

According to a letter sent out to publishers and authors (reported by Teleread, and picked up by PaidContent), customers who bought titles on these stores won’t lose them, but will be able to migrate them to the B&N Nook platform instead. The letter touts the ebook format ePub as “growing in popularity,” and cites this as one of the reasons for the transition to the Nook Library.

The letter reads as follows:

November 15, 2012

Dear Fictionwise Publisher/Author,

As you may know, Barnes & Noble acquired Fictionwise, Inc. (Fictionwise) on
March 3, 2009. Fictionwise runs several eBook websites, including
Fictionwise.com, eReader.com and eBookwise.com. Over the past few years there
has been a significant decrease in demand for many of the eBook formats that
Fictionwise.com sells. In contrast, the new industry standard eBook format
supported by Barnes & Noble–ePub–is growing in popularity.

This letter is to notify you that Fictionwise will wind down its operations on
December 4, 2012. The Fictionwise sites (including Fictionwise.com, eReader.com
and eBookwise.com) will end sales on December 4, 2012 and U.S. Fictionwise
customers will cease to have access to their Fictionwise Bookshelf through the
site after December 21, 2012. Customers outside the U.S. will cease to have
access to their Fictionwise Bookshelf through the site after January 31, 2013.
Fictionwise customers will be notified of this and U.S. and U.K. customers will
be given an opportunity to move their customer accounts, including their eBooks
purchased at the Fictionwise websites, to a Barnes & Noble NOOK Library.

Pursuant to section 2 of the agreement between Fictionwise and you, we hereby
provide you with ninety (90) days notice that this agreement will terminate
effective February 13th. Your final 4th quarter royalty statement and payment
will be mailed February 15th.

If you are not already selling your titles at BN.com and would like to do so,
please visit www.pubit.com.

We greatly appreciate your support of Fictionwise over the years. Together, we
pioneered eBooks and eReading.

Thank you,
Daniel Jorissen and The Fictionwise Team

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Owners of the Nook Tablet and Nook Color (plus Android tablets with the Nook app) will now be able to catch up on the adventures of Superman, Batman, Sandman, and other characters published by DC Entertainment. Barnes & Noble announced today that more than 100 of DC’s graphic novels are available through Nook Comics.

To facilitate the reading experience, Barnes & Noble also says it’s adding a new feature called Zoom View, allowing readers to zoom in on a particular panel, then read the graphic novel panel-by-panel. This will probably sound familiar to users of ComiXology and affiliated apps on the iPad, where the Guided View experience has gone a long way towards making comics pages readable on smaller screens.

Marvel and Barnes & Noble made a similar partnership announcement for Nook Tablets last fall. Collectively, these announcements suggest that the Nook is making steps to catch up with other devices (the Kindle being the bigger competitor, but the iPad being the trendsetter when it comes to digital comics) as a comics reading experience.

In the case of DC, the news also means that the publisher has gotten over its dispute with Barnes & Noble from last fall. DC had announced that it was offering 100 graphic novels exclusively on the Kindle Fire, prompting Barnes & Noble to pull those titles from the shelves of its physical stores, claiming, “we will not stock physical books in our stores if we are not offered the available digital format.” Well, now they’re being offered the digital format.

Those 100 Nook titles will include a number of graphic novels collecting the first storylines from The New 52, the initiative that DC launched last fall to reboot all of its characters (and also to take a more aggressive approach to digital distribution). Other titles include Watchmen, All Star Superman Vol. 1 and 2, and The Sandman Vol. 1-10.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble this morning reported sales and earnings for its second quarter ended October 29, 2011, and they’re a mixed bag. Total sales decreased slightly, from $1.9 billion to $1.89 billion, compared to the prior year.

The company posted a net loss of $6.6 million for the quarter, or $0.17 per share, as compared to a net loss of $12.6 million last year. This is below Wall Street expectations.

Physical book sales declined, Barnes & Noble says, offset by increases in NOOK products and positively affected by the liquidation of the remaining Borders stores.

BN.com sales, meanwhile, increased a decent 17 percent over the prior year, from $177 million to $206 million.

Zooming in on its NOOK business, Barnes & Noble boasted about the successful kick-off for its NOOK Tablet.

The $249 device was introduced on November 7, 2011. In the first few weeks of launch, the company says the NOOK Tablet has become the fastest selling NOOK product in its history.

Says William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble:

“We expect to sell millions of devices during our third quarter, adding to the millions of current NOOK customers.”

B&N further said that the consolidated NOOK business across all of the company’s segments, including sales of digital content, device hardware and related accessories, increased 85 percent in the second quarter to $220 million, on a comparable sales basis.

The company also says it plans to invest more heavily in customer acquisition activities to fuel NOOK digital growth. However, as a result, B&N expects full year EBITDA to be at the lower end of the previously issued range of $210 million to $250 million.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble just announced that they’re opening their Nook platform to developers and will now begin accepting apps. If you thought this was a great opportunity to submit your “Fart Blaster” or “Ragdoll Boobies” app, think again: B&N will be running an “app review/acceptance process that will follow the company’s content acceptance policies as with books to ensure the content is appropriate for the Barnes & Noble customer.”

Developers also have access to more debug modes on the Nook and a set of forums to talk about programming tips and tricks. All of these will be available at NookDeveloper.com.

Read more…

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A week after Amazon Kindle New York Times subscribers received word that their subscriptions granted them free access to the paper’s website, Barnes & Noble Nook subscribers will also soon be able to access NYTimes.com for free.

The New York Times announced its paywall a few weeks ago , which allows for free access to a set amount of content across digital platforms. The Nook subscription for the New York Times costs $19.99 per month, and these users will not have to pay for any content when accessing the NYTimes.com.

For non-home delivery subscribers, access to the NYTimes.com plus its Smartphone Apps starts at $15 every four weeks. For tablet access, the subscription will cost $20. Obviously, if Kindle or Nook user are already paying for a subscription to the New York Times via their e-reading device, it wouldn’t make sense to charge them twice. Barnes and Noble says that The New York Times continues to be one of the bestselling NOOK Newspapers.

Barnes & Noble customers with current subscriptions to The New York Times through NOOK Newsstand will be notified via email in the coming weeks with more information on how they will gain free access to NYTimes.com.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch