eReader Evolution
Jinfo Blog

16th December 2009

By Nancy Davis Kho

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In the newest report in its 'eReader Revolution' series, Forrester takes a look at how the entry of Barnes and Noble's long-hyped nook device in October is changing the playing field. In recent reports in the series, Forrester has chronicled the explosive demand for eReaders building to a crescendo for the holiday season (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e25592). In the December 3 2009 'Battle for the eBook Consumer' report, author Sara Rotman Epps points out that the playing field is anything but settled. For enterprise use, that's even more true. The nook, which B&N is pricing at US$259 - a full $140 cheaper than major competitor Amazon's Kindle or the Sony Reader, isn't revolutionizing the eReader market, with similar feature sets to the other big players (and an admittedly cool color touchscreen). But the nook offers one major difference - the ability to lend books via the new reader - you can choose to content to lend to a nook-owning colleague for a 14 day period (and just like with a real book, that content is gone from your library during the two week period.) I found this functionality really interesting, because it starts to get to the heart of the reading experience. As delivery mechanisms go, physical books are quite efficient - you can lend them, annotate them, throw them in your bag - and eReaders haven't brought much extra to the table (highly unlikely you're going to lend around your $400 Kindle to a friend to share a must-read) . But this lending functionality suddenly throws a community aspect into the picture and makes the eReader act much more like a physical book. The Forrester report also points out the challenge that eReader devices face in 2010: 'consumers are reading eBooks across a number of devices, including desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and netbooks, as well as eReaders … eBooks on an iPhone or an eReader couldlay equal claim to attributes such as “takes up less space” or enabling consumers to “access multiple books on the go.”' In my travels I see so many netbooks at conferences and on airplanes these days , and smartphones are everywhere - do we really need a dedicated device to do our eReading when so many other compact devices exist? I'll continue to track the eReader evolution in the year to come, would love to hear your comments and questions as I go!

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