Oh, this week I am a failed book-blogger. How can I claim to be interested in the book world and not write anything about Barnes & Noble's big announcement of the week: the release of the Nook? Information first appeared on the BN website on Oct 20th, and the Nook has been no small subject among the world of e-books (and p-books!) this week.
In short, the Nook is BN's response to the so-far widely successful Amazon Kindle. The $259 Nook has WiFi and 3G capabilities, allows readers to share books (oh, DRM, how we love you) across devices (although as far as I can tell, not the Kindle or Sony reader). The WiFi will only be in stores for now, but there are talks of opening it up later.
From what I can tell, it seems that BN has addressed many of the complaints that users have had with the Kindle and the Sony e-reader. It allows the sharing of books (which the Kindle does not), has WiFi access (available in stores, which is creating a brick-and-digital bundle many have been hoping for; this will also be seen in hardcover/e-book bundled sales), has a large, easy-to-read screen, can be used as a USB device... the list goes on.
Teleread, devoted to e-book developments, has more information on all of this -- here's a round-up of their coverage from the week.
As a side note, there are still theories that Apple will outdo the lot of the book retailers (look at the success of the book apps on iPhones and iPods...). Check out more details in Newsweek.
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Thanks for the round up link, you know I'm keeping a keen eye on all of this e-book progress and hubub as well. We live in interesting times.
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