Barnes & Noble has been having some success recently selling their Nook e-reader. They’ve been promoting the device heavily in their stores and recently did a big push for Father’s Day. They’ve been pleased with the sales of the unit, though haven’t released any specific numbers sold. They even have an iPad app, which I have and is fine in its own right. Not as elegant as the iBook reader (the gaps between paragraphs in the B&N app are huge, and unfortunately not adjustable, which irks me), but the themes — various combinations of fonts and background colors — are a cool idea that also happen to be useful.
Some time ago I had this to say about the Kindle Reader after I got my iPad and played around with iBooks for the first time:
The Kindle Reader is dead after this. There’s no way in hell anyone is going to pay money for a device that does one thing only and does it in a completely shitty way compared to the iPad. Kindle Reader = extinct technology. The software may survive, but the hardware is toast.
I also had this to say:
True, the iPad is a multi-purpose device, which I’ve already argued is going to either kill the Kindle and Nook and their e-reader brethren or force them to (a) reduce price to an almost throwaway point or (b) incorporate additional functionality (i.e., iPad-ize them).
Point (a) above is already starting to happen. On Monday, June 21, Barnes & Noble dropped the price of the Nook by a sizable margin. They cut the price of its wi-fi and 3G Nook from $259 to $199, while at the same time introducing a $149 wi-fi-only version. This is just the first salvo in what I predict is going to become an ongoing war between Amazon and B&N (and probably Sony at some point). This is a grab for market share in what is going to be a rapidly shrinking market of single function e-reader devices.
What about Apple? I hear you ask. (Yes, my hearing is very good.) Why aren’t you including them in this price war?
Because they’re not in it. They’re above it. Or beside it. Take your pick, but precisely because the iPad is a multi-function device makes them immune from this downward pricing trend. That may anger and irk fans of the Nook and Kindle, but I’m sorry, it’s true. When Apple launched the iPad the future of single function e-readers became very dark and grim, with the half-life of a soap bubble. Oh, they’ll be around for a few years more, with prices dropping faster than BP’s reputation, but the iPad chopped their heads off in one fell swoop.
They’re dead, they just don’t know it yet.
Larry Dignan at ZDNet had this to say about the Nook price drop:
The move is likely to put Amazon on the defensive and the e-commerce giant appears to have been either caught flat-footed or resting on its early Kindle lead. Many folks have noted that Apple’s iPad is a dedicated e-reader killer, but let’s exclude Steve Jobs & Co. from the picture. Even excluding Apple, Amazon looks a bit behind the curve on e-readers.
Amazon may have been caught flat-footed, but they didn’t stay that way for long. Later Monday afternoon they responded with their own price cut on the Kindle. They dropped the price from $259 to $189.
I’m really curious to see how low the prices of e-readers is going to get, and how fast. My money’s on one of the majors (Amazon, B&N, or Sony) dropping to a $99 price point by Christmas. 
