MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
October 18 – October 25, 2007 Edition
Barnes & Noble
to Market Books
on BlackBerry Phones
NEW YORK, NY/10/15/07–Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced that Barnes & Noble.com ( www.bn.com) will market books, CDs and DVDs on BlackBerry® smartphones. An agreement with Digby, a leading mobile commerce service provider, establishes the “Barnes & Noble Storefront” for all current Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) BlackBerry smartphone users, effective immediately. The Barnes & Noble.com Storefront is updated on a daily basis to keep content fresh and features new releases, bestsellers, and special promotions.
“Consumers now have a fully stocked Barnes & Noble right on their BlackBerry with access to hundreds of thousands of products available for delivery in three business days or less,” said Marie J. Toulantis, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble.com. “Digby on the BlackBerry delivers a convenient buying experience, available to our customers anytime and anywhere. With their help, we’re taking a leadership role in the development of this important distribution channel.”
The Barnes & Noble Storefront includes:
Rich content that is optimized for BlackBerry smartphones, including full product descriptions and images of all products. Mobile shopping cart with support for multiple products and vendors in a single order. Calendar and address book integration on BlackBerry smartphones, including reminders for special events. Secure transactions and password-protected buying.
“The growth of the BlackBerry smartphone customer base and the robustness of the BlackBerry development platform are attracting and enabling innovative companies like Barnes & Noble and Digby to provide our customers with a range of value-added applications and services,” said Jeff McDowell, vice president of global alliances at Research In Motion.”?The ability to shop online at Barnes & Noble using a BlackBerry smartphone adds another dimension of convenience to the mobile experience.”
Digby radically simplifies the mobile buying experience by combining rich content with an intuitive shopping process that is optimized for mobile devices such as Blackberry. Its goal is to radically improve the mobile purchasing experience for consumers around the world.
“We are thrilled to have Barnes & Noble join the Digby service on BlackBerry smartphones,” said David Sikora, chief executive officer of Digby. “The adoption of mobile as an important marketing and sales channel by Barnes & Noble and other name-brand retailers is validation that the time for mobile commerce has arrived. We’re looking forward to working closely with Barnes & Noble as they look to drive continued innovation in the mobile channel.”
The Barnes & Noble Storefront is available for free download on all current BlackBerry smartphones. For more information about Digby visit www.digby.com.
About Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world?s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 792 bookstores in 50 states. For the fourth year in a row, the company is the nation’s top bookseller brand, as determined by a brand?s overall strength based on its combination of familiarity, quality and purchase intent, 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.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate Web site: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
About Digby
Digby is a leading mobile commerce service provider, with the goal to radically improve the mobile purchasing experience for consumers around the world. The flagship service, Digby, combines rich content from name-brand retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Godiva Chocolatier, and FTD, with an intuitive shopping process that is optimized for mobile devices such as the Blackberry. Led by software industry veterans, the privately held company is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For additional information, please visit www.digby.com.
The BlackBerry and Research In Motion families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. Research In Motion assumes no liability and makes no representation, warranty or guarantee in relation to third-party products or services.
