Barnes & Noble Launches New "Nooks"

Barnes & Noble has announced the latest generation of its “Nook” e-reader and tablet line. New Nook

The new Nook Tablet costs $249 and features several hardware upgrades over its predecessor including a dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of internal storage. It's on sale now for pre-order and will be available in stores the week of Nov. 14th, 2011.

Barnes & Noble says the Nook Tablet is the company’s fastest and lightest tablet, and also offers access to popular movies, TV shows and music from Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora and others, plus a collection of high-quality apps, fast Web browsing and email. New Nooks

The Nook Tablet is now available for pre-order at www.nook.com and at Barnes & Noble stores.

The Nook “Color” e-reader now is priced at $199. The new Nook “Simple” is priced at $99, without ads.

New Nook, New Positioning?

Are there implications for Barnes & Noble as it prepares to launch its next generation of Nook e-readers? 

Some might say so, especially as Amazon’s new line of Kindles, especially the Fire, seem to be getting traction.

Up to this point, women have tended to be bigger buyers of e-readers than males. Also, Barnes & Noble is emphasizing more toys and goods for children in its retail stores.

The logical implication might be that Nook gets positioned as a device especially useful for families with children.

In the United States,  as recently as August 2011, tablet and eReader owners tended to be male and on the younger side. But according to Nielsen,  this is no longer the case.

In the third quarter of  2010, for example, 62 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and only 10 percent were over the age of 55. 

By the second quarter of  2011, only 46 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and the percentage of those over 55 had increased to 19 percent.

Looking at the data by gender underlines key changes in the e-reader category. Some 61 percent of all e-reader owners are now female, compared to 46 percent in the third quarter of  2010.



Smart phone owners are now evenly split between male and female and tablets remain primarily male. E-reader demographics

E-Reader Maker IRex Files For Bankruptcy

E-Reader maker IRex Technologies has filed for bankruptcy, citing disappointing sales of its consumer device in the United States.

The firm's DR800SG e-reader was notable because it used an “open” model that gave publishers lots of control over how their content was distributed. Unlike the Kindle, for instance, publishers could set their own pricing. But most observers expected there would be a shake out in the market, and that now has happened.

E-Reader Maker IRex Files For Bankruptcy | paidContent

Sprint and Skiff to Sell E-Reader

Though firm pricing and availability are not yet announced, Sprint will be providing the connectivity services for the new Skiff e-reader, to be sold sometime this year.

The Skiff Reader e-reader uses a metal foil display service, not glass.

Sprint and Skiff will also launch a Skiff Store, where users will be able to find more digital content.

Touted as the “first e-reader optimized for newspaper and magazine content”, as well as the first to use LG Display’s “metal foil” e-paper technology, the Skiff Reader will use Sprint’s 3G network and also can use a Wi-Fi connection.

The Skiff Reader also features Wi-Fi, a 11.5 inch, 1200 x 1600 pixels touchscreen display, built-in speaker, 3.5mm headset jack, and USB 2.0.

Books, magazines, newspapers, personal and work documents, and other types of digital content can be stored on the Skiff Reader thanks to its 4GB internal memory (expandable with a MicroSD card).

The Skiff Reader, the initial dedicated device to integrate the upcoming Skiff e-reading service, is about  a quarter-inch in overall height and clearly is the thinnest e-reader yet produced by any supplier.

The device uses a full touch-screen and weighs just over one pound.

The Skiff Reader's flexibility is based on its construction from a thin, flexible sheet of stainless-steel foil, not glass.