Fictionwise
Encyclopedia
Fictionwise, owned by Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...

, is one of the largest electronic book sellers in North America with an estimated 1.5 million ebook content units sold in 2008. Fictionwise sells ebooks in various formats. Fictionwise sells both encrypted and unencrypted ebooks.

The website Fictionwise.com was launched on June 5, 2000, as a partnership between Steve Pendergrast and Mindwise Media, LLC, which is owned by Scott Pendergrast. The success of Fictionwise led to it being spun out of Mindwise Media into a separate company in October 2000. Fictionwise was acquired by Barnes & Noble on March 5, 2009, for $15.7 million in cash (plus the potential for earn-outs). Barnes & Noble said it plans to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, which includes the launch of an e-Bookstore later this year.

Most eBooks are viewed on mobile devices like Smartphones, PDAs, and eBook devices (iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...

, Palm OS
Palm OS
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

, Java ME
Java Platform, Micro Edition
Java Platform, Micro Edition, or Java ME, is a Java platform designed for embedded systems . Target devices range from industrial controls to mobile phones and set-top boxes...

, BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...

, Psion, Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

 and iLiad
ILiad
The iLiad was an electronic handheld device, or e-Reader, which could be used for document reading and editing. Like the Barnes and Noble nook, Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad made use of an electronic paper display. In 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when its parent company, iRex, filed...

).

On January 1, 2008, Fictionwise acquired the eReader business unit of Motricity, Inc. eReader was one of the oldest ebook sellers, originally starting under the name Peanut Press and later renamed Palm Reader when owned by Palm, Inc. By acquiring eReader, Fictionwise nearly doubled in revenue.

After the eReader acquisition, Fictionwise immediately began expanding platform coverage of the eReader eBook format to include three more recent versions of the Symbian operating system, newer Mac OS X operating system, iPhone and iPod touch platforms. They also made the "Pro" versions of eReader software free, and developed the first mobile-friendly version of the eReader.com commerce site. In December 2008 Fictionwise licensed the eReader format to Lexcycle
Lexcycle
Lexcycle is a software company that makes electronic book reading software. They are responsible for Stanza, which runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. In April 2009, Lexcycle was acquired by Amazon.com....

, who integrated it into their Stanza
Lexcycle Stanza
Lexcycle Stanza is a freeware program for reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports the eBook formats EPUB, eReader, MS LIT, Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket, and PalmDoc, as well as general document formats HTML, PDF, MS Word, and Rich Text Format...

 ebook reader for iPhone. Fictionwise indicated that additional licensing deals were in progress.

Fictionwise released a Blackberry beta version of eReader on March 11, 2009. The company is currently developing Android, Linux, and electronic ink device versions of eReader and expects to release them in 2009 to continue expanding platform coverage of the format.

External links


See also


The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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