NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, recently opened its doors to developer innovation with its NOOK Developer program. Today, the company is pleased to deliver new and innovative reading experiences through NOOK Apps, a collection of high-quality applications launched for the company’s award-winning NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet. The addition of popular apps and other most requested tablet features to the newly updated NOOK Color make the best reading device on the market the best value tablet on the market at $249.
NOOK Apps offer NOOK Color customers a broad collection of popular applications from the world’s best publishers and third-party developers, including Chronicle Books, Condé Nast, Concrete Software, Gameloft, Goodreads, Loud Crow Interactive, my6sense, The National Geographic Society, NAMCO, Rovio, Wordnik and more. NOOK Apps were introduced with the major NOOK Color software update launched today (available at no cost at www.nookcolor.com/update). The update delivers what customers want: shopping for popular apps, full-featured built-in email, an enhanced Web experience, as well as new ways for adults and children to enjoy rich content. NOOK Color v1.2 includes a platform upgrade to Android OS 2.2/Froyo, along with support for Adobe® AIR® and Adobe Flash® Player.
“We are thrilled to add to our robust eReading ecosystem a differentiated and unique portfolio of high-quality applications, which enrich and extend the reading experience that our customers know and love and keep the whole family entertained and engaged, connected and organized. With an update to the operating system, NOOK Apps, email, an enhanced Web experience and more new, great features and content to enjoy, we have made NOOK Color – already acclaimed as the best reading device on the market – truly the best value tablet on the market for $249,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. “The response from the developer and content communities has been terrific, as many great companies are enthusiastic about bringing their strong brands, products and content to NOOK Color and the NOOK Bookstore, and taking advantage of the unique benefits of our open platform and merchandising opportunities.”
NOOK Apps represent an exciting and unique opportunity for developers to reach a targeted and passionate audience of millions of Barnes & Noble customers. The company offers unmatched marketing and merchandising opportunities for developers through NOOK Color, BN.com’s storefront, and unprecedented merchandising opportunities to drive discovery and demand in more than 1,300 Barnes & Noble retail and college bookstores.
Today, NOOK Color customers can get even more out of their Reader’s Tablet with more than 125 high-quality applications optimized for the device in categories including Children, Education & Reference, Entertainment, Games, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle & Interests, News & Weather, Productivity and Tools & Utilities, with more to come. Popular NOOK Apps include the all-new Aces Bubble Popper, Angry Birds, Cheese Plate, Goodreads, Epicurious, Flight Control, GeoBee Challenge, my6sense, NOOK WordOfTheDay™, Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book, Uno, and many more.
Since late last year, third-party developers and content providers have been using NOOK Developer tools and resources to develop a wide array of rich and unique applications optimized for NOOK Color’s open eReading platform and the device’s stunning 7-inch color touchscreen. Built on the Android OS, it is fast and easy for third-party developers to deploy existing Android-based apps to NOOK Color’s open eReading platform. With the v1.2 update, Adobe AIR is available pre-installed on the NOOK Color eReading platform, allowing developers to create and deliver rich and interactive applications for NOOK Color using tools in Adobe Creative Suite® 5.5 including Flash Builder™ 4.5, and Flash Professional CS 5.5. Developers can learn more about the tools and resources available to create AIR and native Android applications for NOOK Color on the NOOK Developer portal.
Barnes & Noble will continue to work with the development community – including the program’s more than 5,000 registered parties – to bring NOOK Color customers the highest quality apps, through a simple, organized method of discovery through the Shop experience. The number of NOOK Apps will continually expand as new applications are added to the growing collection. The NOOK Developer program continues to experience strong momentum with hundreds of developer requests to qualify for application submission in the three weeks since Barnes & Noble opened its submission process for qualified registrants and introduced a new suite of tools and services to accelerate application delivery and distribution.
Developers are invited to join and qualify to submit their applications by visiting www.nookdeveloper.com. Unlike other developer programs, there is no program fee for developers to participate in NOOK Developer. Developers who qualify will be able to submit paid and free apps and will receive 70 percent of any paid app purchased by Barnes & Noble customers. Developers also have the option to offer free trials to NOOK Color users.
Quotes from NOOK App Content Providers and Developers
Goodreads:
“With the Goodreads app for NOOK Color, readers can connect with other readers, discuss what they’re reading, and interact with favorite authors,” said Otis Chandler, founder of Goodreads.
“I’ve always been a fan of Goodreads, and how you can browse your friends’ bookshelves. It’s exciting to watch NOOK Color grow from a great place to read into this new idea, which is almost like social reading. My fans can see I’m reading everything from Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken to those Alex Rider kids’ books – I like a wide range,” said bestselling author, James Patterson.
Rovio: Angry Birds
“Being able to promote the Angry Birds franchise across multiple channels – on NOOK Color, on BN.com and in hundreds of Barnes & Noble retail locations – is unique and extremely appealing,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle, of Rovio.
Condé Nast: Epicurious' Recipes & Shopping List: On the Go and In the Kitchen
“NOOK Color offers a great, portable, new way for people to find, save and create shopping lists from Epicurious’ award-winning database of over 30,000 professionally created and tested recipes. It is the ultimate interactive cookbook that cooking enthusiasts can take from the couch to the kitchen and even the store,” said Tanya Steel Editor-In-Chief of Epicurious.
Wordnik: NOOK WordOfTheDay
“The Barnes & Noble eReading platform inspired us to use Wordnik's Word of the Day API to create a NOOK WordOfTheDay app specifically for readers who enjoy exploring new words,” said Erin McKean of Wordnik. “Readers and word-lovers will delight in building vocabulary – and discovering great new books.”
NAMCO: More Brain Exercise, Learn to Fly, Flight Control, Crush the Castle
“We are always looking for ways to extend the gaming experience beyond one platform to multiple platforms,” stated Carlson Choi, vice president of marketing, NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “With the success of NOOK Color and the rapid growth of the eReader market, we see a big opportunity to reach new consumers with our popular, casual games. Whether readers want to flex their mental muscle with More Brain Exercise™ or keep the skies safe in Flight Control, they can have a lot of fun when taking a break from reading.”
Concrete Software: Aces Bubble Popper, Aces Jewel Hunt, Pocket Ants
“We are thrilled to be introducing millions of Barnes & Noble customers to Aces Bubble Popper, our newest casual game, exclusively for NOOK Color,” said Keith Pichelman, co-Founder & CEO, Concrete Software. “We are also bringing our popular casual games – Aces Jewel Hunt and Pocket Ants – to NOOK Color, taking full advantage of the high-quality color touchscreen.”
my6sense
“With my6sense for NOOK Color, customers can read and engage with the best and most interesting updates from social networks, news feeds and blogs all in one place, in one intelligent app,” said Barak Hachamov, CEO of my6sense.
Loud Crow Interactive Inc.: The Going to Bed Book, PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit
“The burgeoning eReader and eBook markets have created a wonderful opportunity for us to partner with Barnes & Noble to offer popular children's titles on the NOOK Color as interactive, immersive storybook apps that will entertain, educate, and inspire,” said Calvin Wang, Founder and President of Loud Crow Interactive. “We believe parents and children will be delighted by the interactivity, including touch and gesture-based animations, audio, and narration.”
The National Geographic Society: GeoBee Challenge
“Through our relationship with Barnes & Noble and the development of the GeoBee Challenge application for NOOK Color, we hope to foster a curiosity for knowledge and exploration,” said Drew Onufer, vice president, Interactive and Digital Products at National Geographic. “NOOK Color owners can test their geographic smarts in this fun and educational application.”
Chronicle Books: Art of the Slow Cooker, Cheese Plate, Animal Show
“Parents will appreciate the fun and whimsical Animal Show, launching first on NOOK Color on Android. The application includes more than 30 favorite animals with over 60 audio clips and four games to help children develop memory, counting, and spelling skills as they play and explore. Food-lovers will delight in taking their NOOK Color from the couch to the kitchen with Art of the Slow Cooker and Cheese Plate-beautiful applications featuring delicious recipes, expert pairings, and helpful shopping lists,” said Jack Jensen, President of Chronicle Books.
Gameloft: Uno
“As a leading publisher of digital and social games, we’re excited to be extending our presence to Barnes & Noble’s eReading platform, starting with the wildly popular card game, Uno™. Barnes & Noble offers an attractive community of players and we’ve optimized the Uno™ experience for NOOK Color. Users will enjoy the crisp, high-resolution graphics and multiplayer mode where you can play against friends and family,” said Baudouin Corman, Vice President Publishing Americas of Gameloft.
About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble's NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble's expansive NOOK Bookstore™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. NOOK products are the most full-featured, dedicated eReading devices on the market. The award-winning NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet, the best-value on the tablet market ($249), features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. For book lovers, NOOK 3G ($199) and NOOK Wi-Fi® ($149) offer a paper-like reading experience with a color touch screen for navigation. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOK Books™ for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe™ technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million.
In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at www.bn.com/nookapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble's free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™, BlackBerry® and other smartphones, PC and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study™ (www.nookstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids™ (www.nookkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en español™ (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.
For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday™ NOOK Books and more, follow us on www.twitter.com/ebooksbn and www.facebook.com/nookbn.
ABOUT BARNES & NOBLE, INC.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 705 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 636 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
NOOK™, NOOK Color™, Reader’s Tablet™, NOOK Books™, NOOK Bookstore™, NOOK Apps™, NOOK Developer™, VividView™, Read In Store™, More In Store™, LendMe™, Lifetime Library™, NOOK Study™, NOOK Kids™, NOOK Books en español™ and Free Friday™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.
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