Dec 1 2011

Thursday Midday Links: B&N Second Quarter Results

By Jane • Publishing News • • Tags: , ,

Some special deals for romance readers:

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Woot is selling the 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab (refurbished units) for $199.  This device has 16GB of memory, microSD, WSVGA (1024 x 600) screen resolution.  It’s a pretty good deal. I can’t figure out, though, whether you have to sign up for a 3G data plan. If you don’t, it is a great alternative to the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet.

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Elvis Costello urges his fans to not buy the holiday compilation priced at $202 calling the price either a misprint or satire:

6th December 2011 sees the issue of “The Return Of The Spectacular Spinning Songbook” by Elvis Costello and the Imposters.

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Unfortunately, we at www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire.

All our attempts to have this number revised have been fruitless but rather than detain you with tedious arguments about morality, panache and book-keeping – when there are really bigger fish to filet these days – we are taking the following unusual step.

If you should really want to buy something special for your loved one at this time of seasonal giving, we can whole-heartedly recommend, “Ambassador Of Jazz” – a cute little imitation suitcase, covered in travel stickers and embossed with the name “Satchmo” but more importantly containing TEN re-mastered albums by one of the most beautiful and loving revolutionaries who ever lived – Louis Armstrong.

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This is a hilarious story.  A robber comes into a house and threatens the couple living there. SOMEHOW they convince him to watch Patch Adams with them and he fell asleep!  So they escape and call the police.  Now he’s suing them because they promised to hide him from the police and give him money.  It sounds like a plot for Raising Hope.

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Barnes & Noble’s quarterly reports are in and it’s a disappointment to Wall Street.

Total sales decreased 0.6% as compared to the prior year, from $1.90 billion to $1.89 billion. Barnes & Noble store (“Retail”) sales decreased 1% from $931 million to $918 million, with comparable sales decreasing 0.6%. Physical book sales declined, offset by increases in NOOK products and were positively affected by the liquidation of the remaining Borders stores. Comparable store sales improved each month throughout the quarter.

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BN.com sales increased 17% over the prior year, from $177 million to $206 million. Comparable sales increased 38%, on top of a 59% increase a year ago. This increase was driven by continued growth of digital content sales and purchases of award winning NOOK(TM) devices. BN.com comparable sales reflect the actual selling price for eBooks sold under the agency model rather than solely the commission received.

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The consolidated NOOK business across all of the company’s segments, including sales of digital content, device hardware and related accessories, increased 85% in the second quarter to $220 million, on a comparable sales basis.

If the physical book sales decline is made up by Nook increases and Nook increases are 85%, that is kind of scary.

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Do you have an Android phone? One programmer posted a video that showed an Android software program called Carrier IQ  that comes with many Android handsets is recording every keystroke, every message, every place you have ever been with the phone.  The video was posted after the company that makes Carrier IQ made a legal threat against the programmer.  The legal threat was withdrawn after the video posting.

Carrier IQ says:

In an interview last week, Carrier IQ VP of Marketing Andrew Coward rejected claims the software posed a privacy threat because it never captured key presses.

“Our technology is not real time,” he said at the time. “It’s not constantly reporting back. It’s gathering information up and is usually transmitted in small doses.”

Coward went on to say that Carrier IQ was a diagnostic tool designed to give network carriers and device manufacturers detailed information about the causes of dropped calls and other performance issues.

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