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Bookstore Battle: B&N Offers Free Wi-Fi And E-reader

  • Macworld, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 1:02 PM
B&N execs must have just finished Chris Anderson's Free: Offering Web surfers an urban (or suburban) oasis, Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide plan to begin offering free Wi-Fi access. Since 2005, Barnes & Noble has offered AT&T access on a subscription-basis. On Tuesday, the two companies announced that AT&T Wi-Fi has gone complimentary.

Users with laptops, Wi-Fi equipped smart-phones and other wireless devices can now surf the Web in stores without having to set up an account or pay. As a free service, Barnes & Noble is in a better position to market it burgeoning e-book library.

Barnes & Noble recently announced its "eBookstore," and plans to release a dedicated e-book reader of its own -- in development by Plastic Logic - to compete directly against Amazon.com and the Kindle. In the interim the company has released a free e-reader app.

The Barnes & Noble eBookstore launched with 700,000 titles, while the present inventory offered by Amazon.com's Kindle is roughly 300,000 volumes. However, Barnes & Noble's number includes 500,000 e-books which are free public-domain offerings from Google.

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