Nook vs. Kindle: Kiddie Wars, or Android Wars?

近兩年，電子書市場有越來越多廠商想要瓜分這塊大餅，Amazon和B&N紛紛加入搶奪大戰。然而，推出電子書的前提就是要有豐富的圖書種類和內容，並且需要有方便消費者隨身攜帶的裝置，如iPad或智慧型手機。B&N推出NOOKcolor電子書於自家專屬的Nook系統，其主要為小孩專用教育書，充滿色彩且圖片豐富的電子書。然而，B&N錯失了將自家電子書於Android系統行銷，且過於依賴店面的銷售。競爭激烈的電子書市場，不論是出版商或者書店商家皆透過各種行銷手法，想要爭取消費者的注目。我們以後不用擔心家裡沒有位子擺放琳瑯滿目的圖書，只需有電子書系統就不需再煩惱了！

Barnes & Noble isn't letting Apple's iPad or Amazon's Kindle steal the spotlight this holiday season, if B&N can help it. It's pitching its NOOKcolor e-book reader directly to the market that most appreciates color pictures in books — kids, and their parents — opening an enormous and lucrative portal to illustrated e-books.

With more than 12,000 digital books for kids and some persistent marketing this holiday selling season, B&N just may succeed in reaching the one million e-readers shipped benchmark by year-end.

Improvements in technology and revenue opportunities for educational usage, particularly in children’s books, have spurred development and publishers including HarperCollins, Disney Publishing, the Hachette Book Group, Macmillan and Workman Publishing to colorize their libraries faster than you can say "There's no place like home."

Apple just introduced more than 100 titles to the iPad — children’s books, cookbooks and photography books — bursting with color photos and illustrations. Its top color e-books to date include Ian Falconer's Olivia picture book for kids; the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook by chef Thomas Keller; Beginnings, by baby-as-flower photographer Anne Geddes; and In the National Parks, featuring the photography of Ansel Adams.

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing has been “itching to do it since e-books became possible… It finally gives us the opportunity to have our picture books join the e-book revolution,” commented the division's head, Jon Anderson, to the New York Times. “It gives us a great opportunity to monetize our content in a way that we previously haven’t been able to.”

HarperCollins' first digital titles, Amelia Bedelia and Fancy Nancy, have been available on the NOOKcolor since November.

Disney has reached one million downloads of mobile book apps for characters including Winnie the Pooh, the Disney princess line and the Toy Story characters.

While it makes sense to focus on the kids market, Barnes & Noble may be missing another opportunity, as reader Ryan Morris commented on brandchannel in August:

"I think B&N is missing out on the marketing of the device as an Android OS device, and the open nature of the OS. Running a version of Google's open-source OS, it has the ability to really open up for more functionality. This is most evident now in the number of formats of e-books supported, and the volume of free e-books this opens up. Amazon likes to say that their e-books are cheaper, which on a book-to-book comparison may be true. However, half of the books on my Nook were free...

B&N may also be relying too much on their stores for sales. I think Amazon's TV campaign is really catchy, simple, and generally appealing. It makes it seem like a Kindle is hassle-free way to enjoy a whole library of books, which is exactly their point. B&N may need more than in-store sales staff (especially since a significant part of the appeal of these devices is access to books for those who live far from a decent bookstore) to combat the ubiquity of the Kindle brand."

LINK: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/12/20/Nook-vs-Kindle-Kiddie-Wars.aspx#continue