Kindle and eBook Xmas Success to Fuel Change?

Image via Wikipedia

The day after Christmas, Amazon announced that Kindle and its eBooks are still on top of the eReader/Book mountain. It's supposed to be the most "gifted" item in its company's history and that their eBooks outsold the physical ones. Granted they only compared the sales to themselves and not with their competitors, still it's a big achievement considering that selling physical books online is their main bread and butter.

Is this the start of something big or is it just a phase? Will people finally be convinced to leaving their hardbounds and paperbacks for eBooks? Some who have been collecting books for a long time aren't that too sold on eBooks: they are saying that it strains the eyes after reading for a few hours, while some are afraid of missing holding a thick book or even the smell of a freshly unpackaged novel. For me and all of the people who bought the Nook and clogged up the Barnes & Noble site will agree with me that it's time to shift mediums: from paper to electronic.

However, the main problem seems to be the availability of the medium: the eReaders. Most eReaders are in the West and most European countries while the bookworms of the East would have to sell their arm and leg just to get one. And don't even get me started with using credit cards to buy an online book.

The good thing is that the seeds have been sown, it may take quite a while, but eventually eBooks will take over and more trees will love the world for it.

Barnes & Noble Failing the Nook?

Image by Todd Barnard via Flickr

Nook was a surprising hit, got some trouble with the pre-order bulk, and B&N was able to ship as much Nook as they can to waiting customers. However since they were able to send out quite a lot of these orders (some reports saying 60,000), something happened--a domino effect if you think about it. After receiving their Nook, what would the customers usually do? Yes, they will immediately download e-books. And when tens of thousands of customers download e-books at the same time, a queuing problem emerges.

Judging by customer feedback on its support forums, it appears a glut of download requests over gift-giving day jammed the B&N net pipes and left a great many disappointed Nook users. All attempts at downloading an ebook yesterday -- even by those who got their Nook a little earlier in the month -- were greeted with a "Queued: Will complete shortly" message, which apparently remained that way until early this morning when downloading finally resumed functioning.

I guess the people at Barnes & Noble were totally unprepared at how to supply and strategise the implementation of the Nook. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who are still in the queue are fuming mad at Barnes & Noble, but this for me this is part of the birthing pains of a new product. Hopefully their customer service personnel is able to handle the situation and the product and supply team be able to cope up with all these hassles.

With all the trouble the Nook had to go through, this gadget better be worth it.

Source

Nook's Coming to You Soon...Hopefully

Image via CrunchBase

So the Nook was a big hit, although it wasn't much to most tech bloggers after they were able to get their hands on one. I guess eventhough something isn't critically acclaimed doesn't mean that it won't sell. The problem now for Barnes & Noble is that it was too big of a hit: they are currently getting swamped by pre-orders that they were unable to supply their stores or send it to buyers in the appropriate time.

The original plan was to ship pre-orders by November 30 but that date was pushed back to December 7. It took a mere month for the entire order process to break down. Now a small number of pre-orders still haven’t arrived and most brick and mortar stores are sold out and even then they were only available in “higher volume” stores on December 7.

It's so big that it's giving Barnes & Noble a headache. However, don't fret if you're one of them as there's a silver lining in this dark cloud.

B&N is assuaging those customers whose pre-orders and early orders haven’t shipped with a $100 B&N gift certificate if the device doesn’t ship by December 23. The company wrote:“With our sincerest apologies, we will send you an e-mail notification on December 23rd with a $100 Barnes&Noble.com Online Gift Certificate.”

In my opinion, this is a win-win for both B&;N and the buyers. For the company, it shows how much a success their gadget is, for the buyers: they get a $100 Gift Certificate and a Nook (possibly early next year). However, there will be some negative effects as some can't hardly wait and have begun cancelling their order.

Source

Nook copied Alex? Xperia X10 Announced!

Barnes & Noble sued by Spring Design

Image via Wikipedia

Did Barnes & Nobles steal Spring Design's idea? Was the Nook a copy of the Alex? According to Spring Design, it's all true.

"Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of BarnesandNoble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex," Spring Design said in a statement. "Throughout, Barnes & Noble's marketing and technical executives extolled Alex's 'innovative' features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook."

According to the article, Barnes & Noble have yet to reply to these charges. Nevertheless, it's expected that they will deny any copying or stealing ideas and rather resort to saying that it was just a coincidence that they were creating an eBook Reader at the time that Spring Design contacted them.

Sony Ericsson's first Android announced!

Image via Wikipedia

Sony Ericsson has finally announced that the previously leaked, Android powered Xperia X10 (previously known as the Xperia X3) with its Rachael Interface.

With all it's leaked specs and features, would you still want to buy it? What does this particular phone over its other Android sisters and brothers? Just as we mentioned it's interface sure is a lot of eyecandy. It also has some cool Facebook and Twitter integration that has just started to creep up on mobile phones.

"The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is certainly feature packed, and all the leaked rumours over the phone's overlay turn out to have given good reason for excitement, as the UX platform (which is a name that thankfully isn't sticking around) offers something totally different for Android."

We'll see this phone become a reality on 2010.

BN vs. SD source
Sony Ericsson's Xperia 10 source

Barnes & Noble misses opportunity to sell more

The Nook should be an immediate best seller but it seems to have a weird way of selling to customers. Barnes & Noble has more than 700 stores nationwide but only a select of them will be selling the eBook Reader in its stores.

"Instead, I was told as a customer, the booksellers will order a device for in-store customers from the BN.com website to be shipped to their home, much as the buyer could do online from home."

Good point, why go trek to a Nook-less Barnes & Noble store when you can do the same thing online? This leads to some people thinking that there's a shortage of actual devices since it will take a few days for the online purchases to get delivered to their house.

"Why they've chosen to go this route is a mystery to me—why would they want to add an extra step for consumers? We're not sure yet exactly which stores will be getting Nooks (or why—maybe a supply issue?); it's not a huge deal but it can't help the Nook's chances."

Nook's chances are already slim since its getting a wee bit crowded in the eBook Reader niche. Can this be a case of too early of a release? Is there a technical problem they're taking care of? Whatever the reason maybe if a product doesn't move fast enough then people may not be that patient enough to wait for them and transfer to another eBook Reader.

Source (Paid Content)
Source (Gizmodo)

eReaders coming: Nook and Alex

eBook Readers seem to be making a mark on its own as Amazon's Kindle is in danger of losing its stamp on being the top eReader on the block. Here are just a couple of them.

Barnes & Noble eReader

They may deny that they're developing an eBook Reader, called the Nook, but all signs (and advertisements) point to Barnes & Noble developing one.

According to the WSJ, the Barnes & Noble reader will be announced tomorrow at $259. The descriptions match our exclusive photos exactly. They found the device through a premature ad shown on the NYTimes website!

Accidental or a marketing strategy to whet the appetites of eBook lovers everywhere? The next question is whether it will have enough features and pricing that can go up against Sony's and Amazon's eReaders? So far it's supposed to have colored screens and on screen keyboards. Unfortunately, it will be priced at $259. Not enough to really rock the eBook market, but is possible to get enough attention from possible buyers.

SUPPOSEDLY, it will be available on Tuesday (which is a few hours from now), so it's just a waiting game then...

Spring Design's Alex

Another eBook Reader, called Alex from Spring Design, is coming to the scene shows a feature that the current eReaders don't have: dual screen.

Spring Design’s new design brings two screen to an ebook reader and not in the notebook fashion like Asus’ design.  The Spring Design device, Alex, will feature a 6” e-ink display for reading large blocks of text.  It will also feature a 3.5” LCD touchscreen below that screen that will be used for functions such as web browsing.  The bottom screen will be powered by Android.  The device will have Wi-Fi as well as a 3G data connection, though no carrier is named yet.  All we know so far is the name of the device, its features and design.

Is this eReader blurring the lines between laptops, netbooks, and eReaders with this extra screen? We'll see soon as new info on this device rolls in.

Barnes & Noble eReader Source
Dual-screen eReader Source