On Monday, August 19, 2013, US-based book retailer Barnes & Noble launched its Nook Video apps for iOS, Android and Roku. Moreover, the company is also launching native Nook video apps for the Nook tablet and Nook Color, despite the fact that it committed to sell these tablets only through the holiday season.
A year ago, Nook Video was an attempt of Barnes & Noble to compete with other giants on the market, like Amazon and Apple’s video offerings. The offerings include plenty of content, such as movies and TV shows which can be bought, however, this catalog is still smaller than those of its rivals.
So far, it is still not clear why the book retailer is all of a sudden concentrating on developing these apps, as tablets are not part of the company’s long-term strategy anymore. In June 2013, it was announced by the retailer that it is focusing on e-ink readers and then-CEO William Lynch said that the majority of the content sales come from non-tablets and e-readers have become their primary customer acquisition vehicle for content.
There is also a possibility that such apps were already in the pipeline before the company decided to stop manufacturing tablets.
Photo Credits: SB Nation
