The Digital Reader

B&N dropped a couple bombshells this week. First there was NookStudy, which is going to be a new study tool for students (when it’s released). And then there was the Blackboard partnership, which (assuming the integration gets up and running) could give B&N a dominant position in the academic market (not just digital textbooks, but also study guides, etc). The Blackboard announcement caught my eye because the collaborative possibilities that it adds to Nookstudy are a direct threat to Copia.

I admit we don’t really know what Blackboard adds, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that students will be able to share their notes, highlights, and other annotations with other students. This could be very similar to what Copia does. Of course, no one has seen either app is talking about it, so what do we know.

If I’m right, then right now Copia are in a race with B&N. They need to get their app out of beta and on to the market before B&N release Nookstudy. If they don’t, then Copia have pretty much lost the academic market.

BTW, how much do you want to bet that the day B&N release NookStudy, they also release a firmware update for the Nook so it works _with_ NookStudy? As it stands, the e-reader integration is the one thing that set Copia apart from NookStudy. If  the Nook firmware update comes out before the Copia e-readers it could cripple Copia.

This will be an interesting year.