Christmas Future: Barnes & Noble Nook

Wired.com reports B&N's Nook ereader is easy to hack

Great marketing strategy?
       or
Will Barnes & Noble repeat Tivo's blunders?

Christmas Past

An old TiVo being hacked

I remember...

My recollection of history may be all wrong, but it's simple. Simple may not be right, but it's easy to remember. ;)

The way I remember it, when TiVo first came out, there was no such thing as a DVR, there was only TiVo and a bunch of stuff sorta like TiVo.

TiVo had a marvelous new technology that everyone loved. It was the brand name. An they had a cute logo that was just darling. For a brief moment in time TiVo could have taken control of the world. What went wrong?

The first bad thing was lawyers. Lawyers and their law suits. 

The next thing was stupid marketing.

TiVo's biggest marketing mistake was not taking advantage of the way hackers loved the gadget. TiVo always kept hackers at arm's length; never quite inviting hackers into the ``tent", and always leaving open the option of a lawsuit some day. (That's like shaking hands with somebody, while you have a knife pressed against the throat. No matter how warmly you smile, you're not going to gain the person's trust and lasting loyalty.)

Christmas Future

Barnes & Noble ebook reader, nook

Mrs. Muddle's Christmas

I ordered one of the nook ebook readers from Barnes & Noble to give Mrs. Muddle for Christmas. It's original delivery date has come and gone. It's new scheduled date of delivery is 16 December 2009. I'm holding my breath and gift wrap at the ready! :)

I'm very anxious for Mrs. Muddle to have the new Barnes & Noble nook. You see, when Mrs. Muddle reads a book in bed at night, she rubs a thumb against the paper on a page, making a noise very much like elephants on a tetter totter. (Oh, the nook just arrived. I opened the box. The nook is inside a sealed black box, so I can't see it. Should I wait until Christmas morning, and let Mrs. Muddle be the first person to see her nook?)

I got sidetracked by the arrival of the nook! Where was I? Oh, Mrs. Muddle makes this terrible noise with her thumb, while she's reading. She rubs her thumb against the page of a book, and rub-a-dub-dub!!! If I wasn't already crazy!!!

I'm hoping with the nook in hand, Mrs. Muddle won't be able to be a one-woman percussion section of a band. ;)

The inside of a B&N nook

Wire.com & Hacking the B&N nook

Wired.com had this fun article about hacking the Barnes & Noble nook (link).

Snafu or Genius?

The nooks hackability begs the question: Is the nooks' hackability the result of accident or design? Are the folks at B&N brilliant or just damn lucky? Does it matter? No. What matters is what they do next. And what they need to do next is embrace and nurture the hacker community that develops around the B&N nook.

For example, B&N could develop a certification program for hackers. Or, they could sell certified hacking kits. And, of course, sell books on hacking the nook. But these are just a few ideas I've gotten off the top of my head. They may be good or bad. The point is it's a good idea to develop a cottage industry around the nook. The more people with nooks, the more people who'll be using the nook for all sorts of apps; and, of course, the main app is reading.

If B&N can convince tons of people they need a nook, then maybe, just maybe, some of those people might spend more time reading. And that'd be a good thing. Don't you think? :)