Books-a-Million has launched their own reading app for the iOS platform, which works with Adobe’s DRM and they say will display ebooks originally purchased for the Nook. (BAM sells the Nook devices through their physical and online stores.) An offer on the BAM web site promises $100 in coupons with the first ebook purchase through the app. It looks as if the app was released in late November, but BAM has just put out a press release touting it today. It was created by Bluefire Productions, which says this is their “first private label application.” On the release date issue, […]
Social Network
Also Closing: Chicklet, and BookArmy
Princeton children’s bookstore Chicklet will close at the end of the month, as their landlord turns the space over to a tenant paying market rent.Princeton Packet In the same week that Figment.com has launched, Harper UK’s book social networking site BookArmy indicates it will close December 21. The Bookseller says an email to site members indicated “the decision has been made to close the site, after facing strong competition from similar sites and fewer advertising opportunities in such a tough economic climate.” The company tells the magazine that staff will be reassigned to their site Authonomy.
Social eBook Offerings Try to Get the Party Started
As ebook adoption grows the form itself is going to evolve, and static text is going to be wrapped with additional features and connectivity. That much we take as a given, even as it remains an unanswered question which features will resonate at scale with readers (and certainly some readers will happily ignore all such options and stay immersed in the text itself). In recent months, a number of bets have been placed on making ebooks more “social.” Amazon went first in a limited way in April, letting Kindle readers highlight and share favorite passages (and tracking those highlights). Then […]
Copia Opens, But They Aren’t Ready
Copia has finally “soft-launched,” moving from private beta to public beta yesterday though with no official announcement of the service’s debut yet. Among industry players they have partnered with in various ways are GoodReads, LibraryThing, and FiledBy, integrating content from those services. They also offer seven free books, all from Rosetta Books, to people who register for the service. The initial apps work on personal computers, the iPad and WIndows Phone 7, with Android and a Copia Touch App listed as “coming soon.” As promised way back in early January, the site is as much about social connections and discussion […]
Scholastic’s Social Network for Readers, Peroozing Favorite Novelists’ Recommendations, and More
Scholastic launched a social networking site “for readers around the world,” called YouAreWhatYouRead.com. In addition to building community around lists of favorite books they call Bookprints–with a stream of comments, news and reviews to be added soon–the site features celebrity Bookprints from 125 notables, including Scarlett Johansson Jodi Picoult, Malcolm Gladwell, Judy Blume, Bill Clinton, and others. Pitched for readers of all ages, it includes a separate community for younger readers “that provides kid friendly information about books and other activities.” Scholastic executive Maggie McGuire says in the announcement the site is “a celebration of the books that bind us […]