Barnes & Noble Opens Doors to Developer Innovation with Launch of NOOKdeveloper™ Program

Program Will Enable Creation and Delivery of Rich Content and Applications for Barnes & Noble’s Millions of Customers

Content Providers and Application Developers Invited to Build Upon Company’s Open eReading Platform Beginning with NOOKcolor™

New York, New York – October 26, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced NOOKdeveloper, a program that enables content providers and the developer community to deliver new and innovative reading experiences using Barnes & Noble’s open eReading platform. With the new program, Barnes & Noble is inviting content providers and developers to create, market and sell content and applications that enrich, extend and expand reading for millions of Barnes & Noble customers, beginning with the newly announced NOOKcolor, the first full-color touch Reader’s Tablet.
 
Barnes & Noble has quickly become a leader with its rapidly growing eBooks and eReading products, gaining substantial market share in just over one year by leveraging technology and digital expertise combined with its nearly 40 years of bookselling experience. With the launch of NOOKdeveloper, Barnes & Noble will offer content providers and application developers unprecedented access to unique merchandising opportunities to drive discovery and demand on Barnes & Noble’s leading eReading devices, on BN.com, one of the world’s largest e-commerce Web sites, and in store at more than 1,300 of the company’s Barnes & Noble and Barnes & Noble College bookstores across the country. 

“With NOOKdeveloper, we’re opening our doors to content providers and developers to change the future of reading together,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Barnes & Noble Digital Products. “We invite developers across all platforms to join us in growing our eReading ecosystem by creating engaging content and reading-centric applications for our millions of customers to enjoy on NOOKcolor and beyond.”

Developers can revolutionize how people read, beginning with NOOKcolor, the ultimate reading experience.  Built on Android™,  NOOKcolor opens up a whole new world of digital reading materials of all kinds with an unmatched selection of over two million digital titles a single search away on the Barnes & Noble NOOKbook™ Store. Digital content – from bestsellers to favorite magazines in full color, and interactive children’s picture books and enhanced cookbooks – has never looked better than on NOOKcolor’s stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen.

NOOKcolor is also loaded with extras including a full Web browser, free word games and chess, Pandora® internet radio to stream tunes from favorite artists over Wi-Fi® while reading, Quickoffice® to view Microsoft® Office files, and more.

Content providers and developers can build upon Barnes & Noble’s open eReading ecosystem in a variety of ways, beyond the printed word:

• Enrich book content with reference material, audio, photos, videos, Web links, plug-ins, and more to help readers get more out of their books. 
• Extend book content with applications from cooking to travel to science and nature, helping readers further explore their interests. 
• Expand beyond reading with word games, puzzles, and more when it’s time to take a break from a favorite book or magazine.

Over the coming weeks, developers will be able to access a software development kit (SDK), tools, documentation, product specifications and marketing resources through a dedicated portal. NOOKdeveloper will also offer developers unprecedented access to a wide variety of BN.com content and data through Web APIs. Starting in early 2011, developers will be able to submit their applications for sale to millions of readers.

Developers can learn more about the new program and sign up for NOOKdeveloper at www.bn.com/NOOKdeveloper.

Quotes from Content Partners and Developers on NOOKcolor at Launch

Pandora®:  Pandora, the leading internet radio service, gives people music they love anytime, anywhere, through a wide variety of connected devices.

• “With Pandora on NOOKcolor, millions of book lovers can now to listen to their personalized radio stations on the same device from which they’re reading,” said Jessica Steel, Vice President, Business Development at Pandora. “NOOKcolor users can simply open Pandora, enter the name of a favorite artist or song and immediately start listening to a station created just for them, based on the initial song and their feedback to subsequent songs. It’s a never-ending experience of music discovery tailored to the taste of each individual.”

Quickoffice®: Embedded on over 300 million devices, Quickoffice® is the world leader in mobile productivity solutions and is providing for Barnes & Noble advanced viewing capabilities of Microsoft® Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

• “We are excited to be part of Barnes & Noble’s innovative eReading platform,” said Gregg Fiddes, vice president of worldwide sales at Quickoffice. “Since Quickoffice is embedded into NOOKcolor, users can easily access and view all the content they love, including their personal files, directly on their device. They can zoom text at any level for optimal high-definition viewing. We’re excited to partner with Barnes & Noble and reach the eBook audience, as it supports our mission of bringing our award-winning productivity application to all users.”

Quotes from Content Partners and Developers Working with Barnes & Noble

Chronicle Books: Chronicle Books believes that digital publishing expands rather than replaces the traditional reading experience and embraces the digital marketplace by bringing its distinctive design, life-enriching content, and signature style to the widest range of dynamic digital products.

• “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Barnes & Noble for NOOKcolor not only because of their extensive market reach and our longstanding relationship, but because we share a vision about the digital consumer’s lifestyle – from traveling and exploring new hobbies to cooking a great meal to reading bedtime stories,” said Jack Jensen, President of Chronicle Books.

Concrete Software®: Concrete Software offers high-quality popular, casual games that you can quickly start playing for short or long periods of time.

• “With the explosive growth in the eReader market, we see new ways for us to reach a new audience by extending our award-winning casual games to Barnes & Noble’s NOOKcolor,” said Keith Pichelman, co-Founder & CEO, Concrete Software. “Even the most avid book lovers want to stretch their mind and take a short break from reading.”

Cooking Capsules™:  Cooking Capsules offers a fresh approach to cooking with a delicious portfolio of “encapsulated” recipes. Each Cooking Capsule features a motivating cooking show, shopping list and step-by-step recipe instructions.

• “NOOKcolor is an attractive opportunity to take the Cooking Capsules application built for Android and reach a completely new audience, beyond phone owners without requiring a lot of effort,” said Mary Ann Cotter, CEO of Smart Capsules, Inc. “With the millions of cookbooks Barnes & Noble customers purchase, an application that provides practical cooking media and tools, like Cooking Capsules, encourages readers to pursue their interests in a new way, beyond the book itself.”

Dictionary.com: Miss Spell’s Class is an original word game that lets you test your spelling skills against the most commonly misspelled words on Dictionary.com. The Dictionary.com app delivers world-class reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, including nearly 1,000,000 words and definitions and 90,000 synonyms and antonyms, as well as audio pronunciations and Dictionary.com's popular Word of the Day.

• “We are thrilled to extend our popular, brain-building Dictionary.com and Miss Spell’s Class applications to a new and growing market of Barnes & Noble customers,” said Shravan Goli, President, Dictionary.com. These apps are a great way for NOOKcolor owners to access trusted reference content and word/educational games.”
• “People want access to word definitions in context, without navigating away from what they are doing,” said Shravan Goli, President, Dictionary.com. “With open APIs from Dictionary.com, literally every developer of any application for NOOKcolor that utilizes words can integrate Dictionary.com’s content and features so that their users can effortlessly experience word discovery.”

Howcast: Howcast for NOOKcolor will show fun, useful how-to videos, whenever and wherever you need to know how.

• “We’re excited to be working with Barnes & Noble to bring Howcast’s informative and engaging how-to videos to NOOKcolor,” said Daniel Blackman, Chief Operating Officer and cofounder, Howcast. “Enhancing the reading experience with related content is a very compelling example of how eBooks are evolving, and Howcast for NOOKcolor will provide a great way for millions of readers to quickly access relevant information right from their device.”

Lonely Planet: Established in 1973, Lonely Planet is one of the world’s leading travel content providers enabling curious people to experience the world and get to the heart of a place. Lonely Planet has sold over 100 million guidebooks, 5 million mobile apps, and tens of thousands of eBooks and is a trusted source of travel information.

• “We see the convergence of books and eBooks as the future of travel publishing” says John Boris, Executive Vice President, Lonely Planet. “Guidebooks and travel tools translate seamlessly to the digital space, providing readers with a rich experience by incorporating stunning photography, detailed maps, hyperlinks and search features. We’re proud to have been first to market with eBooks and travel applications and we look forward to partnering with Barnes & Noble to deliver the ultimate digital travel experience on NOOKcolor.”

TasteBook: TasteBook is the best place to find, organize and share your favorite recipes and make a beautiful, personal cookbook.

• “We’re excited to extend the TasteBook food and cooking platform to NOOKcolor customers,” said Kamran Mohsenin, CEO and founder of TasteBook. “For culinary enthusiasts, TasteBook is a great way to take inspiration from the cookbooks you own, add and share your favorite family recipes, and even produce a personalized, keepsake-quality cookbook.”

Wine Ph.D.: Wine Ph.D. is a handheld database of wines from around the world providing up-to-date tasting notes, ratings, and food pairings in order to help those from novice to aficionado make intelligent drinking and purchasing decisions.

• “For NOOKcolor by Barnes & Noble owners with an interest in wine, or who want to quickly find a great wine for the meal they’re preparing, Wine Ph.D. will provide useful information from wine tasting notes, ratings, and recommended food pairings. Also, the ‘MyWines’ tab allows users to save your favorite wines and record your own notes,” said Dave Lauinger and Brian Pierce, co-founders of Wine Ph.D.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 717 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 633 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble is the nation's top bookseller brand for the seventh year in a row, as determined by a combination of the brand's performance on familiarity, quality, and purchase intent; the top bookseller in quality for the second year in a row and the number two retailer in trust, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOKbook™ Store (www.bn.com/NOOKbooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read NOOKbooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eReaders, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

NOOK™, NOOKcolor™, NOOKbooks™, NOOKnewsstand™, VividView™, NOOKfriends™, AliveTouch™, LendMe™, ArticleView™, Daily Shelf™, NOOKfriends™, NOOK kids™, NOOKstudy™ , NOOKdeveloper™, ReadAloud™, NOOKbook Personal Shopping™, Read In Store™, More In Store™, Free Friday™, PubIt!™, Lifetime Library™, Read What You Love. Anywhere You Like™ and Touch the Future of Reading™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.

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About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like™ with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOKbook™ Store of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. NOOK products are the most full-featured, dedicated eReading devices on the market.  NOOKcolor ($249), the first full-color touch Reader’s Tablet, provides the ultimate reading experience with a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love. For book lovers, NOOK 3G ($199) and NOOK Wi-Fi® ($149) offer a paper-like reading experience with a color touch screen for navigation. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOKbooks for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe™ technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.NOOK.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart and Books-A-Million.

In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at www.bn.com/NOOKapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™, BlackBerry® and other smartphones, PC, and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOKstudy™ (www.NOOKstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education and NOOK kids™ (www.NOOKkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children.

For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOKbook releases, Free Friday™ NOOKbooks and more, follow us on www.twitter.com/eBooksBN and www.facebook.com/NOOKBN.