It seems like just yesterday the Barnes and Noble Nook Color was released and revolutionized expected content for ereaders. Full color magazines, newspapers and kids books were new features from the revised B&N online bookstore. Nook Kids allowed our children to interact with stories like never before, and now it’s available for the Apple iPad.
Barnes and Noble is a company barely afloat with its bloated retail chain of books and is looking for another company to buy them out. Its saving grace this year has been the success of the Nook line of e-Ink electronic readers and their new Nook Color tablet device. Not only are they selling the e-readers, but they maintain a strong precense with eBooks. They also developed the innovative self publishing program ‘PUBIT‘. You could say 2010 has been a productive year for Barnes and Noble.
Nook Kids was one of many new key features in marketing their Nook Color, and is quite revolutionary in the ebook sphere. Since the books can be viewed in rich detailed colors accompanied by videos and pictures, it allows authors to create unique content to make for a more visceral experience. Kids can opt to have certain books read to them, or to read them themselves. Some of them even feature interactive content on specific pages. For example, if you click on the popular character Thomas the Tank Engine from a series of children’s books, he will talk to you, saying different things relating to the story on different pages, and adding more content on-top of the main story. Nook Kids books, that are rich in interactive content have high replay value, because of harder to find interactive content that may require a second, more careful read-through.
Barnes and Noble no slouch in 2010. In the app sphere they released Android, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry and other applications to allow readers to buy books and read them on the go, whether they had an e-reader or not. The company has recognized the importance of offering a viable alternative to other industry stalwarts such as Amazon and Sony. Nook Kids is now available on the iPad, and insures that B&N growing ebook library can be read on other devices besides their own hardware.
Nook Kids is now a free app, available on iTunes. Of course, you have to pay for new books, and any new ebooks you buy will automatically be synced with your Nook Color, if you have one. If you don’t, go buy one from our retail partner Shop e-Readers!
via Barnes and Noble
Happy Holidays everyone!
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
