The Digital Reader

Let’s wait 10 minutes and see if Amazon announces a new Kindle retailer (like yesterday).

…

Nope.

Barnes & Noble just announced that that a second retail chain will be getting the Nook Touch and Nook Color on Saturday. Fred Meyer is a regional chain of 132 wal-mart style stores in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Starting 2 days from now you should be able to find both Nook models in all of their stores. They’ll also be carrying accessories.

This is getting interesting. It’s not just that Amazon and B&N are competing to see which can sign more retailers, thought that is fun to watch. No, I was thinking of one of B&N’s early partners, Books-A-Million. At the time they decided to carry the Nook it was a big deal. Now they’re just one of many retailers, and they lost all this time they could have been building their own identity as an ebookstore.

At this point i think they should sign up with Kobo, and maybe even buy  Border’s stake. BAM! have been left behind in this niche.