The new Nook wireless portable reading device being sold by Barnes and Noble, the worlds largest book store with over 1,300 branches, looks set to lock horns with the worlds best selling eBook reader device, the Kindle2.
Though not in stores yet, the Nook is looking to ruffle Amazon's feathers further by taking it on directly in a sector of the market, that up to yet, the Amazon Kindle has dominated. Since it's launch, firstly as the Kindle then later in February 2009 as the Kindle2, it has re-ignited the eBook reader market by offering a mix of revolutionary technology, through it's instant connect anywhere wireless networking and also the largest selection of titles available for download at fantastic, cheaper than the high street, prices.
BARNES AND NOBLE
Customers brought in to the concept in a big way and it is only recently that the rest of the industry have woken up to the fact that this is the future of book buying. An so in the last couple of months we have had the announcement from Sony of their intention to join in the fun, with their soon to be released (early December at the last reckoning) Daily Edition, and the latest press release from Barnes and Noble that their own contender, the Nook, will be ready for shipping during the latter part of November.
There are no doubts that the Kindle2 is the device everyone is going after. And to be honest it's pleasing to see a little competition in this sector. Yes we have had the iRex iLiad but it was a little on the large side to be a wireless portable reading device, perfect for office use with the 1:1 A4 reproduction, but much like the KindleDX - another wireless eBook reader - not something you would want to take on vacation, or put in your handbag or pocket for that matter, and it was never going to compete on price was it?
So now we have two large companies willing to go head to head, with the might of Amazon, on all fronts. Sony recently increased the size of their library at the Sony-Store and reduced the prices of their Digitally delivered titles to match that of Amazons and hopefully B&N, who have always been in the same ballpark price wise, will match them title for title as well.
But the biggest news for consumers has to be the move away from proprietary file formats, used by Sony in the early days and still used by the Kindle now. To explain the situation I will use Amazon as an example, remember this is still the case with the Kindle so it makes it clearer.
With proprietary formats, when you purchase a book for digital download from Amazon it will come in their own file format. AZW which only allows you to read it on the Kindle. So if in the future you decided you wanted to swap book readers to another make, your library of eBooks become useless. Make your own mind up if that's fair or not.
That scenario has been a big stumbling block for the industry in general but also for the makers of other eBook readers in particular. They where never going to be able to offer the number of titles Amazon where capable of doing and so this aided sales of the Kindle. And so they offer support for more file formats, particularly the Adobe PDF, which is a favorite format for free eBooks, but this format does not reproduce a scaled down version of text that well as it was always supposed to be reproducing text at an A4 size, perfect for the DX and iLiad readers but not so for the smaller 5,6 and 7 inch screens.
And so came the Epub standard, an open source format designed to display text. It is fast emerging as the format of the future and has gained support from the likes of Google Library who will be releasing their entire one million titles, of which the majority are free to down load, in this format. Barnes and Noble will also be doing the same as will the Sony-Store.
So you can see that any eBook reader device that has support for this format will be future proof. B&N's Nook Wireless Portable Reading Device has .Epub support, as does the Sony Daily Edition, and so you can download your eBooks from where ever you choose, paid for or free, and not just from the manufacturer of the eBook reader device , which is the case with the Kindle portable reading device.
B&N's New Nook Wireless Portable Reading Device Takes on Amazon's eBook Reader Device BARNES AND NOBLE
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