Major announcement from B&N today about a huge upgrade to the Nook. The apps include Angry Birds, Uno, Lonley Planet Phrasebooks, Epiurious, Pandora, calendar, notes, email, Friends. In addition the Nook now has support for Flash. Also opening is the Nook Newstand which will include 150 interactive magazines and newspapers.
The update to version 1.2 is available now and includes Android 2.2/Froyo, Adobe Air and the Sdove Flash player. The update will be pushed via WiFi and can also be downloaded at www.nookcolor.com/update.
At 10:30am EST B&N is having a webcast about this (invitation only) and I’ll take notes and report back to you. In the meantime here are the 3 press releases B&N sent to me.
Barnes & Noble Expands Award-Winning NOOK Color™
Reading Experience with the Most Requested Tablet Features
Reader’s Tablet™ Now Offering Popular Apps, Email, Enhanced Web Experience and New Rich Content for Adults and Children
Customers Can Explore One of World’s Largest Digital Bookstores Featuring
New NOOK Apps™, More than 2 Million Books, 150 Interactive Magazines and Newspapers and More Than 12,000 Children’s Chapter and Picture Books
At Only 9, the Easy-to-Use, Full-Featured NOOK Color is the Best Value
in the Tablet Market, Offering a Great Alternative to Expensive Tablets
Exciting Free Software Update Now Available to
All Current and Future NOOK Color Customers
New York, New York – April 25, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today that it added significant new features and content to the NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet, making what has already been acclaimed as the best reading device on the market, the best tablet value on the market at just 9. With a major update to its bestselling device, Barnes & Noble is delivering more of what NOOK Color customers want: shopping a broad collection of popular apps, staying connected with full-featured, built-in email and an enhanced Web experience. In addition, NOOK Color’s reading experience gets even better with enhanced books featuring in-page video, new interactivity in digital children’s picture books, and now over 150 interactive magazines and newspapers, including new popular titles like The Economist and Food & Wine. All current and future NOOK Color customers can experience all of the great new features in v1.2 now available atwww.nookcolor.com/update and provided for free over the air (OTA) via Wi-Fi to customers beginning next week.
“NOOK Color offers the best reading experience of any device, and now delivers the most popular tablet features such as engaging apps so customers can play, learn and explore, free, built-in email, an Android operating system update for enhanced Web browsing and more interactive content,” said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “With our new NOOK Apps program, we’ve partnered with the world’s best publishers and developers to offer popular brands like Angry Birds, Epicurious, Uno, Lonely Planet, Dr. Seuss, Little Critter and many more quality and entertaining applications. These and other enhancements, plus new ways for adults and children to experience exciting content, make NOOK Color a great alternative to paying double the price – or more – for an expensive tablet. Our easy-to-use, full-featured Reader’s Tablet is available for only 9, and presents the best value of any tablet on the market.”
Introducing NOOK Apps
NOOK Color customers can get even more out of their Reader’s Tablet – built specifically for reading and complementary experiences – with a collection of top quality apps specially designed to take advantage of NOOK Color’s stunning 7-inch color touchscreen and to keep the whole family entertained, engaged, connected and organized. Enjoy great games like Angry Birds, Uno and More Brain Exercise, and stay up-to-date on news and weather with Pulse and My-Cast. Learn new languages with Lonely Planet Phrasebooks apps, and try new recipes with the app from Epicurious. Keep sharp with pre-loaded crossword puzzles, chess and Sudoku. Stay organized with calendar apps, relax with streaming music from Pandora® Internet Radio and spark creativity in children with Drawing Pad and more fun apps made just for kids like Sandra Boynton’s Going to Bed Book.
NOOK Color customers can easily discover and download apps in seconds from Shop on NOOK Color, so they can browse complementary apps alongside books, magazines and other content. Customers can explore a growing collection of more than 125 favorite NOOK Apps from leading third-party developers and content providers in categories including Play, Organize, Learn, Explore, Lifestyle, News and Kids. The NOOK Apps offering will continually expand as new high-quality applications, optimized for NOOK Color, are added from the large and growing number of qualified developers and content providers submitting their applications through the company’s new app submission process.
Barnes & Noble offers a selection of free NOOK Apps – including calendar and notes apps, requested by NOOK Color customers – and paid apps, with approximately half of the collection available for .99 or less and the vast majority priced at .99 or less. Customers will easily find their newly downloaded or preloaded apps by tapping the NOOK Apps button on the Quick Nav menu or Apps section in their library, as well as through the newly refined search. All updated NOOK Color devices will now include NOOK Email™ and NOOK Friends™ apps preloaded in addition to Pandora Internet Radio, Crossword Puzzle, Sudoku, Chess, Contacts and Gallery.
Stay Connected with Email
NOOK Color now helps customers stay connected with the full-featured free NOOK Email application built in to organize Web mail accounts in one inbox. Given NOOK Color’s compact design that fits easily into a purse, jacket or bag, email was one of the most-requested features requested by customers. Connect to Wi-Fi to check and send emails with a full-screen virtual keyboard, making it easier than ever to stay in touch while on the go. NOOK Email works across the top Web mail services including Yahoo! Mail, Gmail™, AOL and Hotmail.
Updated Platform and A More Complete Web Experience
NOOK Color’s update to Android OS 2.2/Froyo offers system improvements, enhanced browser performance and a more complete Web experience giving customers access to enjoy even more video, interactive and animated content. NOOK Color now includes support for Adobe® Flash® Player. Surfing the Web is even better with the ability to easily switch between larger desktop or mobile Web experiences and enhanced pinch and zoom. Additional enhancements include improved global search and quick settings such as battery indicator, shortcuts to settings and audio.
Enhanced Reading Experience and More New Rich, Interactive Content to Enjoy
Designed for people who love to read everything in rich color, NOOK Color now has even more engaging and rich content, plus a sliding page turn animation, requested by customers. Easily access personal files transferred to NOOK Color on your customized Home screen.
By exploring Barnes & Noble’s more than 2 million digital titles, one of the world’s largest collections of digital reading content, customers will find even more exciting and engaging content to enjoy on NOOK Color.
- NOOK Kids™: Barnes & Noble’s state-of-the-art NOOK Kids digital picture book experience – the first with the innovative Read to Me™ feature – has been expanded with 15 new Read and Play™ titles that bring animation, activities and stories together. In NOOK Color’s innovative Read and Play books, children can interact with their favorite characters and enjoy activities built right into the story they’re reading. Whether it’s drawing with Fancy Nancy or making the dogs go in Go, Dog, Go!, parents and children will enjoy narration, animation and interactivity that fits into the story and plot lines of new Read and Play titles including Splat the Cat, Are You My Mother?, Caps for Sale, Little White Rabbit and more, now available to explore and enjoy.
With more than 350 NOOK Kids digital picture books and more than 12,000 children’s chapter books, Barnes & Noble offers the world’s largest collection of digital content for children. Children can choose stories featuring popular characters like Nickelodeon’s Dora The Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants, and Disney favorites like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Snow White and Cars.
- NOOK Books™ Enhanced: Watch that appetizing recipe being made step-by-step or learn how to perfect yoga poses with embedded video and audio in cookbooks, health and fitness, biography, photography and travel books, along with other interactive content on NOOK Color. With more than 225 multimedia titles (and growing), Barnes & Noble offers instructive content including Knitting for Dummies, You: Raising a Child and ELLE: Workout Yoga starring Brooklyn Decker. Learn more about bestselling books from authors including David Baldacci, Pat Conroy, Russell Brand, Keith Richards and many more.
- NOOK Newsstand™: Dozens more favorite magazines and newspapers are now available on NOOK Color – the first reading device to offer popular newsstand titles in rich, full color. From Us Weekly and Elle to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, NOOK Newsstand delivers your morning paper and latest magazines right to your NOOK Color, ready to read in an amazing new way. With enhancements to magazine navigation on NOOK Color, it’s even easier to enjoy the full-color, digital edition of the print magazine, including Barnes & Noble’s innovative ArticleView™feature. Barnes & Noble continues to build its NOOK Newsstand offering, now with more than 150 top full-color magazines and newspapers including recent additions such as OK! Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic Kids,Every Day with Rachael Ray, Dwell, Outside, Saveur, The Onion, PC Gamer, Family Handyman and many more. All can be enjoyed with a 14-day free trial, via subscription or purchased in single issue form.
Get Social with NOOK Friends
With the new NOOK Friends App (Beta), NOOK Color creates the go-to social network for people who love to read, and offers even more ways to connect. Customers can create a group of NOOK Friends to easily swap books, get a friend’s take on a new bestseller, discover great new reads or see if someone’s enjoying a book they recommended on the Friends’ Activity tab. NOOK Color customers can view their NOOK Friends’ content ratings and reviews, shared quotes, recommendations and how they’re progressing on their latest book. Check out all or individual NOOK Friends’ LendMe™ books available and track all current and pending sharing activity. Updates to NOOK Color also make it easy for customers browsing the great content available in Shop to share which products they “Like” on Facebook and view how many other Barnes & Noble customers “Like” it, too.
NOOK Color v1.2 Now Available
NOOK Color customers can experience all of the great new features in v1.2 immediately at no cost via manual download at www.nookcolor.com/update. A free over-the-air (OTA) update will begin rolling out to customers via Wi-Fi over the coming weeks. Experience the new NOOK Apps and other exciting new features at the NOOK Boutique™ or display in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores across the country or by visitingwww.nookcolor.com. NOOK Color, along with NOOK devices, can also be found at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million.
# # #
Barnes & Noble Unveils New Advertising Campaign
for Bestselling NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet™
“Read Forever™” Anthem Celebrates the Power of Reading,
Whether “By book or by NOOK™,” Through Intimate Portraits of People
Who Love to Read
New York, New York – April 25, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today unveiled a major new marketing campaign for its bestselling, highly acclaimed NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet, which showcases how Barnes & Noble – the bookstore you grew up with – continues to be the best brand for people who love reading in all its glorious forms. Grounded in Barnes & Noble’s longstanding connection to readers, the new “Read Forever” campaign celebrates the emotional power of reading through intimate portraits of people who love to read. Whimsically written, the campaign evokes the emotions inspired by a great read by showing real people truly immersed in their NOOKs, and their books.
The multi-faceted new campaign, developed by Barnes & Noble with Mullen, the bookseller’s new advertising partner, includes an integrated mix of broadcast and cable television, digital, social and print media designed to inspire reading in both a traditional and contemporary sense. The advertising creative features Barnes & Noble’s innovative and highly acclaimed NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet alongside physical books, as well as readers young and old in a variety of environments and situations.
The new TV spots, which begin airing this week, feature many real people, not professional actors, some spotted by the creative team in real-life reading situations, including a commuter, two high-school students, a ballerina and a music store owner. Directed by Mike Mills, the spots have a short-film quality, captured with natural light and in relatable moments that express the importance of reading to the human experience.
Purposeful and passionate, the campaign’s anthem of “Read Forever” reinforces the essential nature of reading by imagining the fantastical circumstances under which reading would no longer be essential: “Till rhymes stop rhyming, and pots stop boiling, and everyone is happy, and there is nothing more to say. Till that day. By hook or by crook, by book or by NOOK, I will read.” The announcer’s voiceover – “NOOK Color by Barnes & Noble” – is heard after the stylized NOOK “n” logo and the “Read Forever” tagline appear.
“Our ‘Read Forever’ campaign beautifully expresses what Barnes & Noble has always stood for, a genuine love of books and reading, and also illustrates what readers love about reading – the ability to lose, find, amuse and educate yourself in written pages,” said Sasha Norkin, Vice President, Digital Marketing of Barnes & Noble. “For decades, millions of book lovers have turned to Barnes & Noble, America’s favorite bookstore, to fulfill their love of reading. With NOOK Color, they can continue this tradition with the best device on the market, a sleek tablet that offers reading – and so much more – in rich, immersive color.”
The campaign promotes Barnes & Noble’s bestselling NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet, which offers reading lovers a best-in-class reading experience on its gorgeous 7-inch full color touchscreen, perfect for reading everything – books, magazines, newspapers and children’s books – in rich color, from the company’s expansive digital content catalog of more than two million titles. And NOOK Color, the best-valued tablet on the market, just got even better with today’s major free software update (www.nookcolor.com/update) that delivers more of what customers want: shopping for a broad collection of popular applications, built-in email, an enhanced Web experience and many other much-requested features and new rich content for adults and children. Barnes & Noble also welcomes customers to visit one of its more than 700 bookstores across the country, to explore its NOOK products and learn from helpful booksellers, always ready to help get new customers ready and reading.
With airings starting this week, the TV campaign will be highly visible, featuring 30- and 60-second spots during regular episodes and season finales of top cable and network shows, including American Idol and other popular programming. The print campaign, which begins in early May, will run in high-circulation publications, and include both intimate portraits of readers, as well as product-centric ads that feature NOOK Color, its innovative features and accolades with the headline, “If you love reading, this is your tablet.”
Barnes & Noble is also giving its customers and Facebook fans the opportunity to participate in a fun social media promotion that will reward them for sharing the TV spot, along with the reasons they could read forever. By entering, they’ll have a chance to win the grand prize: a NOOK Color and gift certificate for ,000 to enjoy lots of great reading from the vast collection available in the NOOK Bookstore™. The promotion will be supported with digital media on top sites including AmeicanIdol.com and others. Customers can view the TV spot and learn more at www.bn.com/readforever.
# # #
Barnes & Noble Partners with Leading Content Providers and Developers to Launch NOOK Apps™ for NOOK Color™,
Best Reader’s Tablet™
NOOK Developer™ Program Brings Popular, High-Quality Applications For Customers to Play, Learn, Connect and More on Award-Winning Device
Major NOOK Color Software Update Expands Best-In-Class Reading Experience with Most Requested Tablet Features Including Shopping For Apps in NOOK Bookstore™
New York, New York – April 25, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, recently opened its doors to developer innovation with its NOOK Developer program. Today, the company is pleased to deliver new and innovative reading experiences through NOOK Apps, a collection of high-quality applications launched for the company’s award-winning NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet. The addition of popular apps and other most requested tablet features to the newly updated NOOK Color make the best reading device on the market the best value tablet on the market at 9.
NOOK Apps offer NOOK Color customers a broad collection of popular applications from the world’s best publishers and third-party developers, including Chronicle Books, Condé Nast, Concrete Software, Gameloft, Goodreads, Loud Crow Interactive, my6sense, The National Geographic Society, NAMCO, Rovio, Wordnik and more. NOOK Apps were introduced with the major NOOK Color software update launched today (available at no cost at www.nookcolor.com/update). The update delivers what customers want: shopping for popular apps, full-featured built-in email, an enhanced Web experience, as well as new ways for adults and children to enjoy rich content. NOOK Color v1.2 includes a platform upgrade to Android OS 2.2/Froyo, along with support for Adobe®AIR® and Adobe Flash® Player.
“We are thrilled to add to our robust eReading ecosystem a differentiated and unique portfolio of high-quality applications, which enrich and extend the reading experience that our customers know and love and keep the whole family entertained and engaged, connected and organized. With an update to the operating system, NOOK Apps, email, an enhanced Web experience and more new, great features and content to enjoy, we have made NOOK Color – already acclaimed as the best reading device on the market – truly the best value tablet on the market for 9,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. “The response from the developer and content communities has been terrific, as many great companies are enthusiastic about bringing their strong brands, products and content to NOOK Color and the NOOK Bookstore, and taking advantage of the unique benefits of our open platform and merchandising opportunities.”
NOOK Apps represent an exciting and unique opportunity for developers to reach a targeted and passionate audience of millions of Barnes & Noble customers. The company offers unmatched marketing and merchandising opportunities for developers through NOOK Color, BN.com’s storefront, and unprecedented merchandising opportunities to drive discovery and demand in more than 1,300 Barnes & Noble retail and college bookstores.
Today, NOOK Color customers can get even more out of their Reader’s Tablet with more than 125 high-quality applications optimized for the device in categories including Children, Education & Reference, Entertainment, Games, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle & Interests, News & Weather, Productivity and Tools & Utilities, with more to come. Popular NOOK Apps include the all-new Aces Bubble Popper, Angry Birds, Cheese Plate, Goodreads, Epicurious, Flight Control, GeoBee Challenge, my6sense, NOOK WordOfTheDay™, Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book, Uno, and many more.
Since late last year, third-party developers and content providers have been using NOOK Developer tools and resources to develop a wide array of rich and unique applications optimized for NOOK Color’s open eReading platform and the device’s stunning 7-inch color touchscreen. Built on the Android OS, it is fast and easy for third-party developers to deploy existing Android-based apps to NOOK Color’s open eReading platform. With the v1.2 update, Adobe AIR is available pre-installed on the NOOK Color eReading platform, allowing developers to create and deliver rich and interactive applications for NOOK Color using tools in Adobe Creative Suite® 5.5 including Flash Builder™ 4.5, and Flash Professional CS 5.5. Developers can learn more about the tools and resources available to create AIR and native Android applications for NOOK Color on the NOOK Developer portal.
Barnes & Noble will continue to work with the development community – including the program’s more than 5,000 registered parties – to bring NOOK Color customers the highest quality apps, through a simple, organized method of discovery through the Shop experience. The number of NOOK Apps will continually expand as new applications are added to the growing collection. The NOOK Developer program continues to experience strong momentum with hundreds of developer requests to qualify for application submission in the three weeks since Barnes & Noble opened its submission process for qualified registrants and introduced a new suite of tools and services to accelerate application delivery and distribution.
Developers are invited to join and qualify to submit their applications by visiting www.nookdeveloper.com. Unlike other developer programs, there is no program fee for developers to participate in NOOK Developer. Developers who qualify will be able to submit paid and free apps and will receive 70 percent of any paid app purchased by Barnes & Noble customers. Developers also have the option to offer free trials to NOOK Color users.
Quotes from NOOK App Content Providers and Developers
Goodreads:
“With the Goodreads app for NOOK Color, readers can connect with other readers, discuss what they’re reading, and interact with favorite authors,” said Otis Chandler, founder of Goodreads.
“I’ve always been a fan of Goodreads, and how you can browse your friends’ bookshelves. It’s exciting to watch NOOK Color grow from a great place to read into this new idea, which is almost like social reading. My fans can see I’m reading everything from Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken to those Alex Rider kids’ books – I like a wide range,” said bestselling author, James Patterson.
Rovio: Angry Birds
“Being able to promote the Angry Birds franchise across multiple channels – on NOOK Color, on BN.com and in hundreds of Barnes & Noble retail locations – is unique and extremely appealing,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle, of Rovio.
Condé Nast: Epicurious’ Recipes & Shopping List: On the Go and In the Kitchen
“NOOK Color offers a great, portable, new way for people to find, save and create shopping lists from Epicurious’ award-winning database of over 30,000 professionally created and tested recipes. It is the ultimate interactive cookbook that cooking enthusiasts can take from the couch to the kitchen and even the store,” said Tanya Steel Editor-In-Chief of Epicurious.
Wordnik: NOOK WordOfTheDay
“The Barnes & Noble eReading platform inspired us to use Wordnik’s Word of the Day API to create a NOOK WordOfTheDay app specifically for readers who enjoy exploring new words,” said Erin McKean of Wordnik. “Readers and word-lovers will delight in building vocabulary – and discovering great new books.”
NAMCO: More Brain Exercise, Learn to Fly, Flight Control, Crush the Castle
“We are always looking for ways to extend the gaming experience beyond one platform to multiple platforms,” stated Carlson Choi, vice president of marketing, NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “With the success of NOOK Color and the rapid growth of the eReader market, we see a big opportunity to reach new consumers with our popular, casual games. Whether readers want to flex their mental muscle with More Brain Exercise™ or keep the skies safe in Flight Control, they can have a lot of fun when taking a break from reading.”
Concrete Software: Aces Bubble Popper, Aces Jewel Hunt, Pocket Ants
“We are thrilled to be introducing millions of Barnes & Noble customers to Aces Bubble Popper, our newest casual game, exclusively for NOOK Color,” said Keith Pichelman, co-Founder & CEO, Concrete Software. “We are also bringing our popular casual games – Aces Jewel Hunt and Pocket Ants – to NOOK Color, taking full advantage of the high-quality color touchscreen.”
my6sense
“With my6sense for NOOK Color, customers can read and engage with the best and most interesting updates from social networks, news feeds and blogs all in one place, in one intelligent app,” said Barak Hachamov, CEO of my6sense.
Loud Crow Interactive Inc.: The Going to Bed Book, PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit
“The burgeoning eReader and eBook markets have created a wonderful opportunity for us to partner with Barnes & Noble to offer popular children’s titles on the NOOK Color as interactive, immersive storybook apps that will entertain, educate, and inspire,” said Calvin Wang, Founder and President of Loud Crow Interactive. “We believe parents and children will be delighted by the interactivity, including touch and gesture-based animations, audio, and narration.”
The National Geographic Society: GeoBee Challenge
“Through our relationship with Barnes & Noble and the development of the GeoBee Challenge application for NOOK Color, we hope to foster a curiosity for knowledge and exploration,” said Drew Onufer, vice president, Interactive and Digital Products at National Geographic. “NOOK Color owners can test their geographic smarts in this fun and educational application.”
Chronicle Books: Art of the Slow Cooker, Cheese Plate, Animal Show
“Parents will appreciate the fun and whimsical Animal Show, launching first on NOOK Color on Android. The application includes more than 30 favorite animals with over 60 audio clips and four games to help children develop memory, counting, and spelling skills as they play and explore. Food-lovers will delight in taking their NOOK Color from the couch to the kitchen with Art of the Slow Cooker and Cheese Plate-beautiful applications featuring delicious recipes, expert pairings, and helpful shopping lists,” said Jack Jensen, President of Chronicle Books.
Gameloft: Uno
“As a leading publisher of digital and social games, we’re excited to be extending our presence to Barnes & Noble’s eReading platform, starting with the wildly popular card game, Uno™. Barnes & Noble offers an attractive community of players and we’ve optimized the Uno™ experience for NOOK Color. Users will enjoy the crisp, high-resolution graphics and multiplayer mode where you can play against friends and family,” said Baudouin Corman, Vice President Publishing Americas of Gameloft.
