While Amazon.com got a big head start on the electronic book market, Barnes & Noble has been aggressively nipping at its heels. Today the giant bookstore chain took another major step with its e-book strategy, opening its own online eBookstore along the lines of Amazon's Kindle store. Barnes & Noble said its e-books can be read on the iPhone and iPod touch, and BlackBerry smartphones. It also announced an exclusive partnership with the upcoming Plastic Logic eReader.
Barnes & Noble is offering 700,000 electronic book titles, though more than 500,000 of those are free public domain books scanned by Google (Amazon currently offers more than 300,000 Kindle titles). B&N is adopting Amazon's e-book pricing model, with new releases and bestsellers priced at $9.99.
Amazon has successfully used the Kindle electronic reader to build a market for e-books. Barnes & Noble doesn't have a comparable device, but it's now hooking up with Kindle rival Plastic Logic. Barnes & Noble will power the eBookstore for Plastic Logic's 8.5 x 11-inch wireless eReader, scheduled for launch in early 2010. Both B&N and Amazon are making e-books available on the iPhone and other smartphones.
Barnes & Noble this spring bought e-bookseller Fictionwise, maker of the popular eReader application for the iPhone, and unveiled its own Barnes & Noble iPhone app last month.
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