Can I borrow that eBook? (Yes, if you give it back.)
Bookseller and publisher Barnes and Noble entered the digital reader market recently, introducing their Nook eBook reader. It has a nifty little 3.5″ navigation screen in addition to the larger eBook panel, but you can read all of that by Googling (or Binging, if that’s your preference) some product reviews. What caught my eye was the following piece of the ecosystem B&N was building:
With our new LendMe™ technology, you can now share from nook to nook. But it doesn’t stop there. Starting Nov. 30th, you can lend to and from any device with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, including PC, Mac OS®, BlackBerry®, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. All you need to know is your friend’s email address. You can lend many of your eBooks one time for a maximum of 14 days. When you use our LendMe™ technology, you will not be able to read your eBook while it is on loan, but you always get it back.
The model sounds promising — B&N allows customers to lend books to each other for 14 days, knowing full well it takes most of us longer to start and finish the average novel.
This model is also an important departure for book lending culture. On the one hand, the book industry has a long history of discouraging lending. As early as the 1930’s, the industry turned to famed PR-man Edward Bernays to “look for a pejorative word for the book borrower, the wretch who raised hell with book sales and deprived authors of earned royalties.” These so-called “book sneaks” and the “pass-along book trade” continue to be hot-buttons for authors, publishers, and the industry at-large today (Striphas, The Late Age of Print).
On the other hand, consumers have shown little interest in “lending” (so much as “sharing”) digital information, much to the chagrin of publishers. E-mails, twitter links, PDFs, and a maelstrom of file-sharing sites have broken down barriers for transporting and sharing documents, music, video, and other content. Most importantly, this digital distribution never affected our on-going use of the information (unlike the lending of a physical book).
Of course, the book industry is well aware that word-of-mouth publicity and lending may be a critical marketing component of their business, which is where B&N’s plan finds a modest compromise. By limiting lending to once per text and 14 days and by removing access to the loaned content, B&N can take advantage of the consumer desires (and marketing benefits) of lending while removing that critical piece of the digital dilemma — free and unlimited distribution.
So will it work?
In the music industry, Microsoft attempted a similar effort a couple of years ago with its Zune MP3 player, which allowed wireless sharing of songs between devices. The limitations were like B&N’s: shared songs had a time limit for listening, and distribution was limited to other Zunes within your proximity. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the device never reached an adoption tipping point where “song sharing” was realistic on a regular basis (although I certainly applaud the innovation).
Unlike Microsoft, though, B&N emphasizes that their LendMe service will be available to non-Nook users as well. This device-agnostic approach strikes me as a critical piece of the puzzle, and I’m likely to at least try it for this reason. I don’t know that I’ll afford the $260 Nook anytime soon, but feel free to peruse my public wish lists and LendMe anything you like.
Tags: barnes and noble, ebook, nook, Publishing
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By Bryan Yeager, October 26, 2009 @ 9:31 am
While this is surely a step in the right direction, it’s important to emphasize that a book can only be lent to another person once in the life of that e-book. This seems limiting, especially if I can buy a physical book for not that much more money (even less if it’s used) and lend it as many times as I want. With trading/lending Websites like SwapTree, the lending process is as easy as ever. I hope B&N opens up the restrictions on lending technology in the future. Perhaps a balance could be struck if an e-book could only be lent once every 3 months or something similar. Otherwise, you better carefully pick who you lend that one book out to!
Digital Rights Management generally leaves a bad taste in the mouths of consumers, because it takes the away the feeling of true ownership. Again, while the e-book lending service is a step in the right direction, I think it still has a long way to go.