Barnes and Noble should abandon the device market in favor of innovating in other areas of ebooks. states O’Reilly’s Joe Wikert. He’s right on with that. He’s also right on with that Barnes and Noble needs to innovate their reading app for smartphones and tablets. Yeah! Totally.
But Wikert is off the mark when he suggests Barnes and Noble should try to innovate in areas of new content sales models, like “genre-specific, all-you-can-eat, ebook subscription programs.” Oy, please no. If Barnes and Noble is going to spend their energy on something it should be how to connect readers together through sharing notes and highlights of their books.
People want to share their thoughts within books. Barnes and Noble would have a huge success if they become the social bookseller of ebooks enabling a community around shared marginalia and conversations within ebooks. Nobody is providing that right now. It’s unique. It connects people.