Naomi Reiter

B&N Nook: What Goes Around Comes Around?

I've been reading up on e-readers lately and it appears that one of the most interesting features of Barnes & Noble's Nook is its "LendMe" technology, as described on the company website:

Share favorite eBooks with your friends or family. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the eBook you want to share and send it to your friend's nook – or to any PC or Mac OS® or any iPhone™ or iPod touch® with the free Barnes & Noble eReader software downloaded on it. *BlackBerry® & other smartphones will be coming in early 2010.

The tagline for LendMe is "What goes around comes around." So, if I buy a B&N Nook ($259, back-ordered until February 2010), and pay around $10 to read a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife, then "lend" my copy to my friend who bought a Nook ($259), B&N makes $528—instead of $538, had my friend bought her own copy of The Time Traveler's Wife to read on her Nook. (However, B&N probably only has to pay one licensing fee for the copy of The Time Traveler's Wife that I bought, rather than two fees had each of us bought a copy.) 

Further, B&N has tapped into a tried-and-true psychological phenomenon that has worked for everyone from the airport beggars of the 70s to the neo-hippy kids of the 90s: Give a person something—no matter how small—and that person will feel compelled to pay you back in some way. For example, my friend and I are in B&N and see that if we both buy a Nook, we can share books, so one of us gets free books, or we both get them for half the price if we work together. We each buy a Nook and B&N has already made $518 off of the two of us, and will continue to make money off of us, either incrementally as we purchase one book to share, or in upgrades as we become accustomed to using our devices and will need the latest models.

Of course, if I share the content to my friend's PC, Mac, iPhone or iPhone Touch, my friend will have had to register with B&N and download its e-reader software, with the added bonus that any content I share will act as a personalized advertisement for B&N's Nook. Apparently, what goes around does come around—right back to B&N.

First LEED Gold Certified Winery on Best Coast

Skyscrapers, sports facilities, and now wineries--there is no end to the hipness of LEED certification. HALL's St. Helena Winery in Napa has gone green in a big way by being named a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification recipient for outstanding chutzpah in the environmental department. 

Nielsen to Plant 30,000 Trees

Who says B2B media is all business? Nielsen Business Media announced today that it is partnering with American Forests to plant 30,000 trees across this big, blue marble over the next year. Talk about going green. In the magazine biz, trees are often sacrificed on the joint altar of Information and Entertainment (recall Vogue's infamous 2007 “green” issue that ended up weighing roughly the same as a baby elephant seal?).

Nielsen--publisher of Billboard--will plant the trees on behalf of its clients as part of American Forests’ Global ReLeaf Campaign, according to a press release. SVP of Marketing Mark Hosbein said: “We believe that ‘doing well’ in business should not be at the expense of ‘doing good’ in the community.” Amen, brother.

Among other lofty stats, Nielsen and Co. estimate that the planted trees would cover the Dallas Cowboys football stadium six times and will produce enough oxygen to fill the lungs of more than 20,000 people. We can now cope with the state of the world today with deep breathing exercises guilt-free, thanks to our friends at Nielsen!

Climate Change Impacts U.S. Ski Resorts

Properties Take Action to Delay Inevitable

                                                                    

U.S. ski resorts comprise a $3 billion industry that has a vested interest in fighting global warming, according to Geraldine Link, director of public policy for the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA). Chilling studies commissioned by Aspen Skiing Co. (ASC) and Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) have predicted dwindling snow seasons, which could lead to dwindling profits. But a handful of North American ski resorts are fighting back against global warming by making significant investments to reduce the impact their operations have on the environment.