Nook Color a MiniMe iPad?

Today Barnes & Noble announced their Nook Color e-book reader. The new version is priced at $249 and will begin shipping on or around Nov. 19, and is now available for pre-order. There is no 3G network connection but there is Wi-Fi. Overall the unit looks sexy and could be a real winner at the $250 price point. I personally think Barnes & Noble just hit a huge home run with this product. The pricing and color screen could really take a  bite out of Amazon and even iPad sales. I guess we shall see. What are your thoughts?

Interesting iBookstore Tidbits From Around the Web

Over the last week or so there have been several blog and news postings concerning the Apple iBookstore. Most pretty much say the same thing but I thought I would share some of the postings with my readers.

The iBookstore still doesn’t have a complete catalog of e-books. Amazon’s Kindle store has a far better selection. Plus in looking over the pricing in the top selling e-books in the iBookstore most of the prices are all $12.99 or more. There are not a lot of e-books in the $9.99 range. I actually don’t have a problem with the iBookstore. I enjoy reading e-books in both the iBook app or the Kindle app.

Here are the links to several interesting articles on the iBook store -

TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog had a good article called - ‘The iBookstore Six Months After Launch One Big Failure’

appadvice - had a good article called - ‘Report: E-Books Use Is Growing’

9 To 5 Mac - had a article called - ‘Little action at Apple’s iBookstore’

Would George Washington Chop a Penguin?

Penguin Publishing strikes again! The diabolical high priced e-book publisher just released another high profile e-book at an outrageous price; ‘Washington: A Life’ by Ron Chernow, is currently priced at $19.99 on all major e-book retailers. Not sure what to say about this except I won’t be buying this e-book. I am not sure what Penguin Publishing is trying to prove to their customers by these outlandish e-book prices. In my case they have just driven a huge wedge between me and their product offerings including their non-e-book products.

I was also a little disheartened last week to see that the other high profile Penguin Publisher’s release “Fall of the Giant” by Ken Follett had made its way on several top ten e-book lists. However as of right now it has fallen from somewhere around the #7 top spot on Amazon’s Best Selling Kindle e-books to now #12. Over on the iBook Store Top Charts it is listed at #7. So even though I am disappointed in seeing author Follett’s e-book not reaching its true potential, I am at least glad to see that Penguin can’t crow about record sales for this miss priced tome. Overall I am shocked that people would purchase an e-book at the price of $19.99, especially if they could get the hardcover cheaper. But I guess to each their own. Anyone have any insight into Penguin Publishing’s madness?