Barnes & Noble subsidy Nook Media announced today that apps for its Nook devices would soon gain the ability to offer customers in-app purchases.
Nook is teaming up with payments provider Fortumo for the in-app purchasing functionality, which will give developers of any Nook apps the ability to sell content, upgrades, or service packs to customers from within each application. The move will probably most greatly benefit games on the Nook, which now have a way to monetize their work after an initial purchase is made. Fortumo will also be providing developers with analytics on customer activity, purchasing habits, and more.
The new functionality, which will feature a one-click buying option using the payment details set up through the Nook store, should be available by mid April. But honestly, this sort of functionality should have been standard to the Nook when it launched, especially since bigger and more successful competitors (Apple’s App Store, Google Play Store) have been doing in-app purchases for years.
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Yet, adding in-app purchasing to its apps is a good move for the Nook, and something that can only help improve its currently dismal sales. Barnes & Noble reported huge losses in its last quarterly earnings report, which were primarily due to low sales of ebooks. Of course it also doesn’t help that Nook’s other digital offerings (music, movies) are currently pretty weak. It’ll be interesting to see if the company’s latest push to grab in-app purchasing revenue will turn things around.
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