SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the ebook-market-competition-at-last? dept.
Rakuten (the owner of Kobo) and Walmart have teamed up to take on the Amazon Kindle.
On Thursday Walmart and Rakuten announced a strategic partnership that makes Walmart Kobo's official partner here in the US:
As part of this alliance, Walmart will become Rakuten Kobo's exclusive mass retail partner for the Kobo brand in the U.S., offering Kobo's nearly six million titles from thousands of publishers and hundreds of thousands of authors to Walmart.com customers. Walmart.com will offer eBooks and audiobooks for sale later this year. Walmart will also sell digital book cards in stores, enabling more than 4,000 stores to carry a broader selection of books for customers.
All eBook content will be accessible through a Walmart/Kobo co-branded app available on all iOS and Android devices, a desktop app and Kobo e-Readers, which will also be sold at Walmart later this year.
Walmart is stepping into a role empty since Border went bankrupt in 2011. While Kobo has previously had US retail partners, including Indiebound and Family Christian Stores, they did not get the privilege of co-branded Kobo apps (just the financial benefit of a cut of ebook sales in exchange for selling Kobo hardware).
For what it is worth, Walmart gets the ebook app under its own brand. Given Kobo's negligible share of the US market, that won't be worth a lot of money, but it is at least an egoboost.
(Score: 1, Funny) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @09:21PM (8 children)
I've shopped at Walmart occasionally. Its a trip, alright. Just asking, can anyone in the "walmart demographic" read English language books? I'm just not seeing it.
Just sayin they selected a very peculiar demographic to sell to. For example, during a hurricane or race riot you don't want to be the owner of a retail store selling big screen TVs, athletic shoes, or booze, but lets just say the bookstores usually don't get looted too badly by the typical walmart shopper demographic.
I haven't seen many TV stories of store windows smashed by rioters hauling crates of T.S. Elliot or Yeats on their shoulders, and when I look at the local walmart demographic the last thing that comes to mind is "literate". Definitely the kind of demographic you'd have much better luck daring them to eat pods of Tide detergent, not daring them to read Vladimir Nabokov. You'd have much better luck pushing the Tide.
Its a very strange move.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:43PM (2 children)
What!? What is this vision...!? It's...! I can see the future of your ass. I'm the Assteller.
You're at home, about to miscarriage. However, this is no ordinary baby: this is a feces baby! You run to the bathroom, fill up the bathtub, and shoot the feces baby out of your asshole at speeds you previously deemed impossible. What shot out of your asshole was a hunk of feces with something that looked to be a baby face at one end. The feces baby began crying.
It's mocking you. It's sneering at you. That piece of trash is maliciously trying to disrupt your peaceful life. Can you allow such an injustice to unfold before you? No. You will snuff out the feces baby's life until nothing remains! You grab a nearby pair of scissors and stab the feces baby countless times, tearing it apart piece by piece! "Drown in strut!" you scream. Finally, silence descended upon this place. In celebration of your glorious victory, you began doing a snap dance. Suddenly, words were printed in the air in front of you. They read, "A WIND TURBINE IS BROKEN. DO E E." Your vision then turns pitch black and you feel yourself being transported to another location.
You seem to be lying in your bed, and the room is filled with darkness. You notice that something like a child's toy is under your back, and that it is a malevolent entity. A vision of Morgan Freeman's face appeared at the forefront of your mind, and you heard someone who sounded eerily like him ask, "If I may ask, what power does this place output?" The toy being crushed under your back replies, "Oh, you know... wind-powered, solar-powered, nuclear-powered, tickle!"
You knew. You knew that something disastrous was about to occur, but could not comprehend what it was. You tried to move, but found that not a single cheek on your body was capable of movement. Then, your body suddenly started spinning around at the speed of light on the bed, as if it had become the hand of a clock. Meanwhile, the children's toy under your back began rapidly vibrating and moving towards your most snappy of holes. Once the toy slipped into your undies and reached your snappyhole, it began screaming and making a "VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV" sound. No! It tickles! Your ass... it tickles horribly! No! Stop! Please! But no matter how much you scream, the tickle continues mercilessly. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @10:10PM (1 child)
Exactly what I mean, that fine literature wouldn't sell at Walmart. Probably because its in English ... uh, I think its in English.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 26 2018, @11:05PM
Truly enormous tickle. Or was it tingle [wikipedia.org]?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:45PM (1 child)
Anyone else hear a whistling sound? My dog is going crazy
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @10:08PM
Its just good product marketing, err lack thereof. You wouldn't expect much business success if you inked a deal to sell top quality beef tenderloin steaks at the local vegetarian grocery or a distributorship of said beef steaks to the local Indian restaurant chain.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday January 26 2018, @09:50PM
Aha, but ebooks won't be vulnerable to shoplifting. So the cops won't need to stop by more frequently than their current rate of every day.
http://www.wbng.com/story/37342659/jcpd-called-458-times-to-johnson-city-walmart-last-year [wbng.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by insanumingenium on Friday January 26 2018, @10:25PM (1 child)
Walmart is the only gun store I have ever bought a novel at. That is they point, they sell everything, and with their own brand attached when possible. I know plenty of people that get a large portion of their electronics at Walmart. And if you want to sell retail electronics in this country, Walmart is one of the outlets you work hardest to get/keep. Not sure why lootability features so highly in your response.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Friday January 26 2018, @11:29PM
I figured he was just pointing out that physical stores are more vulnerable to crowdfaults. It's my understanding Walmarts tend to be placed mostly in lower-income neighborhoods, where looting is more likely to happen. The Walmarts where I've lived have been pretty good though; nothing like People of Walmart. The worst I've seen is the occasional panhandler with sign standing near the parking lot exit.
However, I did go to one in northern California that had a lot of seedy people around, and I thought it was closed at first because the sign and all the lights were off at the side entry point of the parking lot. I kept expecting to find needles lying around but I was pleasantly disappointed to not come across any.