Free E-Books, With a Catch — Advertising

Velcroman1 writes "Barnes & Noble may kick off a fresh price war today for digital book readers, with its new Nook news. But the real news in digital publishing is a novel approach to the e-books themselves: Free books — with advertising. The basic idea is to offer publishers another way to reach readers and to give readers the chance to try more books — books that perhaps they wouldn't normally peruse if they had to pay more for them. Initially, Wowio specialized in offering digital versions of comic books and graphic novels, usually formatted as Adobe PDFs. So it was a natural step for the company to offer graphic ads that are inserted in e-books. 'We think we're creating a broader audience for some of these titles,' Wowio's CEO Brian Altounian told me. 'I think folks are going to download more books because they're saving the costs' of having to drive to the store or pay more for them. Would ads stop you from reading?" The new color Nook goes for $249, and comes with a browser, games, Quickoffice, streaming music via Pandora, and an SDK; reader itwbennett links to an analysis of how well it stacks up as a tablet.

Comments

oh boy

[Tablizer]

"It was a dark and stormy night.....in beautiful downtown Vegas!"

Re:oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better McDonald's... I'm loving it!

Re:oh boy

[MoonBuggy]

Cry 'havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war ...only at pets.com

Re:Did the editors even READ the article?

[antifoidulus]

And obviously I'm a fucking retard as well, the first article cites the "speculated price" but the second one actually links to the real nook. Maybe I should apply for a job as a slashdot editor.

Re:Let me be the first to quote John Gruber

[Anonymous Coward]

And let you be the last, dear god please make it stop

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beg to differ, Sir - ads in ebooks are most definitely not a natural progression (obviously). Otherwise, why would Wowio (stoopid *** name as well) be in process of being granted a "very broad patent" (link in summary above) for such?

You, Sir, are merely jealous that you never discovered this groundbreaking text+ad = Wowio patent license fee invention.

Re:meh

[T Murphy]

But the color adds so much to the experience- it allows my pages to age and yellow like a real book! Not to mention how it should be able to display far more realistic coffee stains...

Re:Great.

[metlin]

Sure. Ask your Mom.