Shares in the American bookshop, Barnes & Noble Inc rose 23 per cent on Thursday, and it seems Microsoft Corp might be preparing a bid to acquire subsidiary company Nook Media’s digital assets. According to TechCrunch, Microsoft are lining up a USD 1 billion offer to buy all of Nook Media’s digital assets.

Posted by Joe Stearn

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Pearson Plc has announced it will buy a 5 per cent stake in Barnes & Noble’s Nook Media for USD 89.5 million. The retailer’s Nook Media unit includes its digital e-reader business, along with 674 college bookstores across America. Pearson, which also owns both Penguin Group and Financial Times Group, added that subject to certain conditions, it will also have the option to buy another 5 per cent stake in Nook Media in the future.

Posted by Ava Szajna

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In a move likely to set a precedent for peak trading, the world’s largest online retailer has bought forward its Boxing Day sale to Christmas Day as it looks to cash in on the rise of Kindles, iPads and other e-readers. As online sales on Christmas Day rose 263 per cent in the last five years, Amazon said it found a large number of customers looking to download content or add gadgets to e-readers and tablets they had been given as presents.

Posted by Ava Szajna

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Amazon.com Inc reported on its first quarterly net loss since 2003, as the company fought a battle on multiple fronts to stay afloat amid Europe’s economic slowdown. Heavy investment in its e-reader technology, an impairment charge for Amazon’s Living Social and a weak consumer confidence across its key markets left Amazon with third-quarter net loss of USD 274 million, or 60 cents a share.

Posted by Ava Szajna

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From December 2011 and January 2012, the proportion of Americans who own either tablet computer such as the iPad or an e-reader like the Kindle or the Nook nearly doubled, rising from 10 per cent to 19 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “In the time we have been doing surveys about the adoption and use of digital technology, we have never seen growth quite like this,” says the project’s director, Lee Rainie.

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Barnes& Noble Inc has cut its forecast for Nook sales this year, as the company shocked investors by saying it was considering a sale of the electronic reader and tablet business. Shares fell more than 20 per cent after the announcement, which followed a holiday sales update from Barnes & Noble revealing disappointing results for the touch-screen based e-reader.

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Amazon.com Inc on Thursday announced it is selling over one million Kindle devices each week, a well-timed disclosure from the Internet retailer, which follows a spate of negative reviews of its new Kindle Fire tablet. Customers are buying “well over” one million Kindles a week, according to Amazon, who added in a statement to press that this trend in sales has occurred for three straight weeks.

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