This is how the New York Times looked on the Kindle app: just text, no formatting, no pictures, no ads, a bare-bones info-shot for news junkies. A while ago the perennial ebook underdog, Barnes & Noble's Nook, got into the newspaper fray. Their app was better in every way, with a photorealistic image of the real thing, the ability to enlarge any page, and the option of clicking a tab to read any story in plain text -- the actual New York Times, on your iPad ... but better.
Of course, the Nook has a cumbersome purchasing protocol -- I guess "one-click" is proprietary to Bezos world -- and the app was glitchy. Sometimes there were delays in delivery. Stuffing your head into the no-frills text trough was easier most mornings, though I did go through the slog for the Sunday edition.
I signed on to Nook in the first place because Kindle didn't offer the Pevear and Volokhonsky War and Peace, a fresh translation that seemed like my best shot to climb Mt. Tolstoy. Nook fills other gaps, also, and of course, I'm rooting for Barnes & Noble. After my most recent viewing of You've Got Mail, I couldn't help noting the irony that Tom Hanks's mega store, which had just obliterated Meg Ryan's indie bookshop, would soon be all but obliterated itself by the implacable force of online shopping. Amazon did finish off Borders ... but Barnes and Noble struggled on.
And now, they've scored an unlikely victory.
Jeff gave up. Jeff got beaten, fair and square. They pulled the New York Times from the Kindle app, or as we say the tech world, "slinked away with their tail between their legs". Much as I rely on our number one internet retailer, it's a union-busting late-capitalist nightmare bully, and it feels good to see the other side notch one in the Win column.
The weird thing is that no one else seems to have noticed. Anyway, I haven't seen any mention of this particular skirmish in the mainstream media. I guess that leaves it to me.
So congratulations, Barnes & Noble. Keep up the good work.
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