[LINK] On the impending end of the Barnes & Noble Nook

[rfmcdonald]

I've been aware of the Nook, Barnes & Noble's E-book platform, for some time. The recent news, courtesy--among others--Diginomica's Stuart Lauchlan that Barnes & Noble will be drastically cutting back on the content available, and dropping support for British consumers entirely, is not at all good news for the platform.

It’s easy to see why this is the case. While the third quarter saw B&N turn in increased profits of $80.3 million, up from $72.2 million year-on-year, total sales fell 1.8% to $1.41 billion, attributable in large part to poor online sales offsetting decent offline activity in-store. [. . .]

So action is required – and it’s starting to kick in soon. B&N customers need to get used to some big changes coming up next week – 15 March to be precise. That’s when the firm will no longer offer third party applications from the Nook Store. That’s a decision fuelled by the success of Google’s Play Store which runs on B&N devices and has been inevitably far more successful.

This decision impacts every tablet B&N has ever made, but the company insists that all existing Apps previously downloaded from the NOOK Store will remain in customers Nook Library and will continue to be accessible on compatible Nook devices.

From 15 March, customers will also not be able to rent or purchase video content from the NOOK video store, which will be closed down completely on 30 April. If customers want to keep the content they’ve already purchased, the need to transfer content to other providers.

If you’ve bought Disney, Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars content, you need to open an account with Disney Movies Anywhere, while all other content will now require the opening of a CinemaNow account. If you haven’t done so by 30 April, you lose the content you’ve purchased.

Meanwhile in the UK, e-books will no longer be supported by B&N. Instead, customers need to open an account with supermarket chain Sainsbury’s. In a less than encouraging proviso, B&N adds that if a book can’t be transferred to the Sainsbury’s platform, a Sainsbury’s Entertainment voucher will be issued as compensation.