William Lynch, Barnes & Noble CEO calls the NOOKcolor “a reader’s tablet,” and from advanced word, he appears to have nailed it. From its description, the device aims for all three reading segments: book, newspapers and magazines. It adds periodicals to the mix by offering color and browser support and overcomes the tablet-reading shortcoming of excessive glare. As Martha Stewart said at Adobe Max, reading Martha Stewart Living on the iPad is great on an airplane “when they dim the lights.” Lynch says B&N has invested in screen technology that reduces device glare.

Other notable features is 8GB of onboard memory and a built-in social experience that extends B&N’s booking lending capabilities to a richer platform that integrates with popular social networks. This comes at a time when the publishing industry is intently focused on social commerce—the role of book recommendation’s from one’s social graph leading to transactions. Nook Color will also offer Quickoffice, a mobile productivity suite. It will not support e-mail clients but obviously will allow consumers to utilize webmail services.

B&N is also offering a Nook Developer SDK with the intent of inspiring developers to create enhanced book application such as adding video to cookbooks and travel books. Enhanced books, to date, has been an elusive, poorly defined category for publishers hoping to bring to market differentiated reading experience for which they can charge a premium. An area of low-hanging fruit for value add is children’s books, to wit B&N is launching Nook Kids, a platform aimed at facilitating value-added features of children’s books such as animation, “read to me” applications and games.

Many, myself included, questioned a retailer’s entry into the e-reading device scrum believing it would not have the technology chops to build and stay ahead of the digital reading device space. Not only is the Nook one of the best (if not the best) e-ink devices on the market, by expanding its offering to include a tablet reader with broader publishing distribution opportunities, Barnes & Noble may have elevated themselves to the head of the class. The NOOKcolor, based on its specs, offers the color and rich flexibility of a tablet blended with the reading experience of the gen one e-ink readers. Let’s not forget that B&N operates a large number of college bookstore as well as Nook Study, a platform for e-textbook reading which could make the Nook Color the go-to device for e-textbooks

So what’s the market impact? I would say that Apple’s iPad suffers a blow as a digital publishing distributor competing head-to-head with a tablet reading device from a major bookseller. Apple has not exactly endeared themselves to publishers with its lack of Flash support (although NOOKcolor won’t support Flash at launch) as well as its policy of not sharing consumer data with publishers and its reported entry price to be part of the iAds program.

The newer tablets en route such as the Samsung Galaxy and Blackberry Playbook will be scrambling to capitalize on their publishing opportunities and the Kindle…well… Amazon’s not saying but it’s safe to say, the company has something up its sleeve and the smart money is on a color tablet device. When? What will be the cool features? Amazon may know, but mums the word

Skiff, at launch, was a device and a platform for “content.” While somewhat nebulous in its position, given the company was part of the Hearst Corporation, the emphasis was on magazines and newspapers in that order. News Corp, with no magazine holding, will clearly be using Skiff for its global newspaper assets as a platform for distribution across myriad devices, none of which will likely be a Skiff.

While the news releases are somewhat ambiguous, it appears the Skiff device is not part of the Hearst-News Corp deal. The smart money says that Hearst is giving up on the device space especially since e-ink-based devices appear to be on a slippery slope with the advent of multimedia e-readers and tablets which offer color, video and web surfing in addition to a “good enough” reading experience. The somewhat sad irony is that Hearst was one of the prime forces behind the development of e-ink at the MIT Media Lab. Also feeling the pain on the possible shelving of the Skiff is Sprint, the hard luck telco, dumped by Amazon in favor of AT&T, looking for its niche in the new content ecosystem.

That takes us to News Corp and its deployment of Skiff. The biggest challenge for the global media giant is where best to house and deploy Skiff to leverage its capabilities. News Corp has struggled with leadership and direction in its digital strategy much of which has resulted in a series of soiled assets (Fox TV/films, newspapers, sports league relationships, MySpace) that are not able to play in the same sandbox not because of technology limitations but rather a common vision. Unless News Corp has a plan—and a good one at that—Skiff will go down as one of those e-publishing pioneers that seemed like a good idea at the time and nothing more.

That’s just the start–it gets more complicated. It is Google’s desire to offer books via web browsers as the reading interface. Google would prefer Chrome as the browser of choice, but its e-book reader will no doubt work with any popular browser. That said, the current crop of e-ink based e-readers (Nook, Kindle, Sony) either don’t support web browsers or do a terrible job in rendering browsers. Even the Alex, which has both an e-reading screen and a smaller LCD screen, does a poor job in displaying web browsers. So, unless e-ink, e-reading devices, which offer a more comfortable e-reading experience embrace new LCD technology that offers color, faster refresh rate and a low-glare display that comes close to e-ink, Google’s plan will have to focus on tablets and other similar devices. New suitable LCD displays from Qualcomm’s Mirasol and Liquidvista shows great promise, but have no public roadmap for e-reading deployment.

There’s more. It’s unclear whether Apple will allow Google’s Chrome browser on the iPad. Yes, Google Editions will work with any browser (including Safari) but there may be features in Chrome that can optimize content. From a precedent standpoint, can Apple keep Chrome off of the iPad when, in 1998, the U.S. courts forced Microsoft to allow Netscape’s browser in its OS alongside Explorer?
And just how will Google Editions render e-books in its browser? Anyone who has read an e-book in a web browser would agree it’s a poor substitute for an e-ink, e-reading device. Google Editions will probably rely on HTML 5’s ability to create browser-like containers for e-book applications. How long will it take Google (and possibly developers) to create nifty value-added e-books for that platform?

And yes, there’s even more. There are issues around DRM, support of ePub, whether or not Google plans a device to support Google Editions and how Apple will maneuver to head Google off at the pass. The e-book/e-reader wars are still in pre-game mode. Look for a number of announcements to come from the upcoming Book Expo America show in New York.

Speaking with an expert in the digital books for education space, I learned of three other stumbling blocks that will make the iPad (or other similar tablets) a go-to device on campus in a few years, but not this fall. Specifically, the issues are those facing not-for-profit universities (which cover everyone save for such for-profit schools as University of Phoenix, DeVry, etc..). In no particular order, the issues are the creation of yet another digital divide (the iPad haves vs. have-nots). Fear of lawsuits regarding section 508 compliance (disabilities act) and the fact that an overwhelming amount of content already digitized by educational publishers is in Flash. Flash and the iPad…no need to beat that dead horse.
My expert told me that at a recent event, 18 of 20 higher-ed CIOs are not bullish about the immediate impact of the iPad. The two who were keen on the device were from for-profit schools who may bundle it as part of their tuition and deploy it as an interactive educational tool.

Seton Hall, apparently, is bucking the trend by offering iPads to students but changing them a $500 premium to cover network upgrades. The school is giving the device to students but there’s no mention of how those who cannot afford the $500 network upgrade fee will be handled. (Side note: the aforementioned article incorrectly states Seton Hall is in Pennsylvania; it actually is in New Jersey).

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new advertising campaign pushing “the power of print” in the form of 1,400 ad pages backed by such magazine heavyweights as Conde Nast, Meredith, Time and Hearst. The ads point to the power of print advertising noting the medium offers depth and lasting quality compared to its online versions. As I look around my own house, I find many back issues of magazines that I refuse to throw away because there’s one more article I want to ready (or re-read, as the case may be). I may be a sample of one, and clearly not a core digital native, but my teenager refuses to switch from print to digital for any of the seven titles she regularly reads. Newspapers she can live without and she seems ambivalent about e-books (which may change in the fall when she enters college) but when it comes to US Weekly and the other mags she ingests, only paper will do.

Data from a Columbia Journalism Review study shows one reason why print diehards may eschew web magazines: publishers just don’t put much effort into them. More than half of the 3,000 magazine surveyed reports they do no copy editing of material in their online versions and 17 percent say they don’t fact check stories for the web. Overall, the survey documents an industry in confused transition, with online decision making often left to people with little or no online experience and different standards for print and online editions.

More signs of marketplace confusion: Wired has been touting the iPad version of its publication but has stated that it will not create similar magazine applications for other titles until Apple and Adobe settle their differences. Chuck Townsend, Conde Nast CEO reports that until Apple and Adobe resolve issues over the use of Flash on the iPhone and iPad, the publisher will pursue multiple platforms for their content. This has to be music to Google’s ears hoping that the Apple-Adobe skirmish will lead to more development of magazine apps in Android as Android supports Flash.

These news items point out uncertainty from the supply side regarding all forms of digital magazines, but there should be equal if not greater uncertainty over consumer acceptance of e-magazines. E-books are a slam dunk and somehow newspapers will figure out a way to put their highly perishable resources on digital platforms but even the best magazine apps I have seen look like pale imitations of the original. To date, when it comes to digital magazines, I remain unconvinced.

Enhanced may be the wrong term to characterize a new content effort from Pearson’s FT Press, a leading business publisher. FT Press Delivers will offer two products, Elements, which will be condensed versions of existing material from leading business authors and Shorts, original material from some of the same sources with contributions from New Word City, an outside editorial services firm. FT Press will experiment with various pricing models and content formats, but at launch Elements are 1,000 to 2,000 words, and Shorts are 4,000 to 5,000 words Elements are priced at $1.99, Shorts at $2.99

FT Press truly gets the “content over device” concept and its willingness to experiment with new content forms in an effort to create what it calls a “content vending machine.” Such an effort is to be applauded but is not unexpected from Pearson (co-owner of Safari Books). The company was among the first major publishers to massively digitize its archives dating back to 1992. The FT, a leading global business brand competing head on with the Wall Street Journal, realizes that its target business customer was one that is willing to spend for information that has value to their careers and businesses. It’s reasonable to expect all of Pearson’s division to move boldly into the multi-platform content asset business, not only in micro form but also in expanded forms that will include sight and sound.

Out of this consumer intransigence comes the notion of “enhanced books.” Modeled on Apple iTunes’ “Extras” which packages goodies such as liner notes, interviews and even original material, enhanced books combined such value-adds as author interviews and video to jack up the retail price. The excitement over enhanced books grew with the introduction of the iPad in that the device offers more real estate, a glitzy color screen and a platform that could be flexible enough to mash book content with publisher goodies.

Sound like a promising way for publishers to squeeze a few dollars extra out of the book-buying world? Sadly, the notion deflates like a old spare tire when you consider:

• Publishers and developers have no clear idea on what constitutes enhanced content worthy of a few extra consumer shekels.
• Publishers most likely don’t have the rights to the content needed to create these enhanced packages.
• The myriad of platforms (iPhone OS, Android, Html 5, Windows 7) each have their own specifications making uniform enhanced content offerings a developer’s nightmare.

This nets out to a limited supply of enhanced content packages (however that’s defined) for soon-to-be-released devices such as the iPad. Publishers admit the value-added e-book game will require a lot of trial and error before anything reaches the balance of price and consumer interest.

While some argue that it will be easier to build enhanced content for non-fiction titles (travel, cooking, etc.) that combine dynamic info with static e-book content, I disagree. If the resulting mash of recipes and cooking video looks like little more than a decent cooking web site, I think such a content asset is a recipe for disaster. Again, trial and error will be the industry norm for quite a while.

1. What works for The New York Times does not necessarily work for the vast majority of metro daily newspapers. The Times, along with the FT, USA Today and Wall Street Journal (maybe The Washington Post) has a national, and in some cases, an international readership. Even in slowdown mode, these newspapers have R&D staffs and have vendors waiting in line to assist their new media efforts. Adobe, for example, was instrumental in moving The Times from a Microsoft-based desktop news reader to an Air-based reader. Smaller newspapers do not have the resources to take on the development required to create “killer apps” for new devices. In addition, larger audience reach allows a national/international to approach a larger total market of device owners while a newspaper in Dallas can realistically only target tablet owners in its own market.
2. People may not pay for newspaper apps. Looking at the top 10 paid apps on the iTunes store shows games and entertainment but nothing resembling content. That said, few if any newspapers charge for their Smartphone apps Even if developers devise compelling apps for newspapers on tablets, there is still no evidence consumers will pay. If the apps merely take what exists today for Smartphone (which is little more than mobile-screen versions of Web content), newspapers will fail to seize this opportunity
3. Consumers will not pay for a device, apps and a data fee. The latest word points to Verizon partnering with Apple for its tablet and we’re likely to see other wireless carriers partner with other tablet manufacturers. Unlike books, which IMHO don’t require wireless access, newspapers require ongoing connectivity to refresh content. Given the fact that WiFi coverage is not persistent, 3G access is needed to fully enable newspaper experiences. With carrier subsidies, consumers will have to pay wireless data plans which, in some cases, may either duplicate service plans or add another provider to a consumer’s monthly mix. It’s also doubtful I can use my wireless 3G adapter with some of the proposed tablets, making the wireless scenarios not very consumer friendly.

The list goes on, but let’s wait until hype turns into reality to see whether the opportunity for newspapers is true riches or fool’s gold.