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William Lynch, and Michael P. Huseby taking over as CEOof Nook Media and President of Barnes & Noble, Inc., occuredin the context of declining sales and profits at NookMedia.For the first quarter of fiscal 2014, Barnes & Noble reporteda decline in revenues of 8.5% , and a loss of $8.9 million(EBITDA), with the Nook division (which includes the devices,digital content and accessories), announcing $153million in sales for the fiscal 2014 first quarter, a decline of20.2% from the $192 million in revenue reported for thesame period in fiscal 2013. (B&N press release, 20 August2013)With the earnings report, B&N announced also to continuesupport and develop its own line of tablet devices (contraryto ealier announcements - see at CNet) and to roll outat least one new reading deveice for the 2013 holiday season.In spring 2013, has re-launched it selfpublishing platformPibIt under the new brand of Nook Press.Earlier developmentsBarnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) describes itself as “a Fortune500 company, is the world’s largest bookseller andthe nation’s highest-rated bookselling brand” (Statementon the company website http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com). The company’s businesses include the operationof approximately 700 specialty retail stores and morethan 600 college bookstores in all 50 states in the US; onlineretailing through its flagship website BN.com; and amarketplace leader in the digital industry through its explodingNOOK brand of eReaders, reader’s tablets, anddigital content.In 2012, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft announced thecompletion of their previously announced strategic partnershipin NOOK Media LLC, with an investment of $300million by Microsoft in NOOK Media LLC at a post-moneyvaluation of $1.7 billion in exchange for an approximately17.6% equity stake, with Barnes & Noble owning the remainingshares. At the end of 2012, , Pearson bought a 5%stake in Nook Media by investing $89.5m in cash. (TheBookseller, 2 January 2013)Barnes & Noble had received a $204 million investmentfrom Liberty Media in August 2011.In fall 2012, Barnes & Noble had brought its NOOK anddigital bookstore to the UK through a newwww.nook.co.uk online storefront. This marked the firsttime the company was expanding its business internationally.Barnes & Noble has thereupon formed partnerships withseveral British retailers, including John Lewis, Dixons,Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Blackwell’s, Foyles and Argos, to sellNOOK HD, NOOK HD+, and E Ink devices. The company hasalso opened its European headquarters in Luxembourg.In October 2009, B&N had introduced its eReading devicebranded as NOOK, the first Android-based eReader. Oneyear later, Barnes & Noble launched NOOK Color, the firstfull-color touch Reader’s Tablet. In 2011, Barnes & Nobleintroduced NOOK Simple Touch, a full touchscreen device,followed by NOOK Tablet. This spring, Barnes & Noble introducedNOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight, the world’sfirst E Ink Reader that enables reading in the dark. And inSeptember, Barnes & Noble launched NOOK HD, the lightestand highest-resolution 7-inch tablet, and NOOK HD+,the lightest full HD tablet. The company also announcedthe premiere this fall of NOOK Video. Barnes & Noble hasan estimated 27% market share of the U.S. ebook marketand a catalog of more than 3 million titles in its NOOKBookstore.GoogleIn 2004, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) introduced booksearches of full text and, in order to increase the amountof digitized books available for such a search, an initiativeto digitize significant numbers of printed books from publicand university libraries. Initially named Google BookSearch, Google Print, and Google Library Project, all ofthese activities are today combined under the label ofGoogle Books. As of March 2012, over 20 million bookshave been scanned, Google reports.As early as 2005, a controversy emerged between Googleand authors’ as well as publishers’ associations and individualpublishers in the US and overseas over the inclusionof “snippets” of copyrighted works. After seven years oflitigation and an initial settlement rejected in 2011 by aNew York court, an agreement has been reached betweenGoogle and the American Association of Publishers as ofOctober 4, 2012. The agreement offers US publishers theoption to either withdraw titles under copyright and scannedby Google in libraries, or to keep them in Google’sprogram and receive in return a digital copy and permissionto commercially use the scan. Furthermore, users canview up to 20 percent of a title and, provided the publisherconsents, purchase it through the Google Play shop. The86 The Global eBook Report