Barnes & Noble nook LendMe feature is severely limited, assumes you have friends

There's been tremendous fuss made over the Barnes & Noble nook, due at least partly to its ability to lend your purchased e-books to friends -- just like real books. Unfortunately, the "world's most advanced e-book reader" limits the LendMe feature to one 14-day period per book, ever, and that's only if the publisher gives permission. You also can't read the title yourself during the loaner period. Of course, nook's biggest competitors can't do this at all and LendMe works on any B&N eReader supported device including the Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod touch, and BlackBerry. One-time is certainly better than no-times, eh?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 23rd 2009 3:19PM]

Shared this on gizmodo.... Would be nice if you could lend in the same way you do regular books -- face to face to give, face to face to get back, unless a longish timeline (like 3 months). Unlimited lends just like real books.

Now why wouldn't this be a win-win for everyone?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 23rd 2009 5:36PM]

A plea from international fans of the nook:

Purchasers in the US, can you please do everyone who craves a nook internationally favour. Ask B&N to allow you to purchase eBooks through wireless while 'traveling' overseas. There is no real reason why this shouldn't be allowed - the nook uses AT&T 3G just like the new international Kindle 2. The inability to purchase books overseas using the device is the single major drawback of the nook compared to the Kindle 2.

If B&N allows this, there will be at least one very happy Australian to thank you.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 24th 2009 8:46AM]

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[Tangible Posted Oct 24th 2009 1:59PM]

@John: There's nothing outmoded about "20th century" terminology such as lend and steal. Stealing something that the original owner still retains is nothing new; sneaking into a movie theater without paying is an example. "Lending" is the perfect description for what BN is offering, as the owner loses access during the loan period just like a real book.

Ebooks are an existential threat to the publishing industry. In the absence of physical manufacture and distribution what function do they perform? They just become meddlesome middlemen. They have every right to be paranoid; the end is near for them.

Interesting idea about sculpture, but the guy you're thinking of is Auguste Rodin. "Rodan" was a movie monster in a spinoff of Godzilla in the Fifties. The actual permanent market for traditional booksellers will be art books, antiquties, and fine bindings for collectors.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 3:46PM]

Besides the lending limit, you probably won't be able to zoom on PDFs:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60569

Considering the small screen, this makes the native PDF support on the nook nearly useless.

Well, one less interesting feature for the nook, it seems.

[Klebsiella Posted Oct 27th 2009 8:13PM]

Not sure why some people are angry at B&N over this one-time-only lending feature. They certainly aren't afraid of people not buying books. Have you ever been into one of their stores? They practically encourage you to grab a book off the shelf, sit in an armchair, and spend hours reading with nary a thought of buying the book. Seems like publishers are the ones who are so frightened by this lending concept.

It's like Matt said, "It's amazing we still have libraries. You'd think book publishers would be lobbying pretty hard against those."

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 6th 2009 12:34AM]

Nook's "Lend" feature limitation is not 1-time-only per ebook like this article states. You are, in fact, only able to lend an ebook to each specific "friend" once, but that particular book can still be lent to other friends after the 14 days is up and the book has been returned to your library.