Barnes & Noble Merge iPhone With Brick & Mortar
Barnes & Noble entered the e-book market in a big way with its purchase of Fictionwise, one of the biggest retailers of electronic books. Barnes & Noble’s main business is selling “real” books in the brick & mortar world, but it continues to show its willingness to embrace technology with the release of its new app for the iPhone.
The B&N Bookstore App is free in the App Store and is designed to make it easy to find books and reviews on the iPhone. The app lets the consumer purchase books online for store pickup or home delivery. For those who like to touch books prior to purchase, it also includes a store locator which tells you if a particular B&N location offers a Starbucks Café and AT&T Wi-Fi access.
(via Crave)
But does it offer a “in-store” locator for a given book? Guess I’ll find out in a few minutes when I download it.
No in-store location finder, but I love the “take a picture and we find the product” feature. Like Amazon Remembers, just faster? (unless Amazon has changed recently)
Unfortunately, since Barnes and Noble took over fictionwise, they have stopped sales of a large percentage of their catalogue to locations outside the US and Canada.
Barnes & Nobles is feeling the heat from Amazon.