NOOK users are getting some freebies thrown their way courtesy of Barnes and Noble. In a similar fashion to Amazon, the company is offering free books and apps weekly — every Friday to be exact. From now on, Barnes and Noble will be offering a NOOK app as well as a book selection. Barnes and Noble is kicking it off by offering a super powerful office app, OfficeSuite Professional 7, which would normally cost $14.99. The free book of the week is called Driftless, a novel about American rural life written by David Rhodes.
This move is definitely an attempt by Barnes and Noble to encourage NOOK usage, with its revenue dropping 9 percent over the last year. These offerings may not be enough to garner new customers, but it could give NOOK users more incentive not to ditch their devices for another e-reader or tablet.
Press release follows below.
Barnes & Noble Announces NOOK® Free Fridays Now Includes Apps: Instantly Download a Different Paid App for Free Every Friday
Free Weekly App Offer for NOOK Customers Kicks off with OfficeSuite Professional 7 from MobiSystems, a $14.99 Value
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–NOOK Media LLC, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced the expansion of NOOK Free Fridays, a weekly program that allows NOOK customers to instantly download free content, now includes a different paid NOOK App™ for free. Every Friday, NOOK customers can download a different paid NOOK Book™ and new, favorite or bestselling app directly to their NOOK tablets, including the critically acclaimed NOOK® HD and NOOK® HD+. NOOK is excited to announce that the free weekly app offer will kick off with the popular OfficeSuite Professional 7 app. A $14.99 value, OfficeSuite Professional will be available to download for free today.
To find and download the free NOOK Books and apps featured in the Free Fridays program, NOOK customers can visit the NOOK Blog (www.nook.com/blog), the NOOK Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nook), or follow NOOK on Twitter (www.twitter.com/nookbn) where the free app will be announced every Friday. The free NOOK Book and app can also be found in the NOOK Store™ (www.nook.com), and downloaded directly on NOOK HD, NOOK HD+, NOOK Tablet™ and NOOK Color™. Exclusions apply, see NOOK.com for details.
To kick off this special free weekly app offer, NOOK will be offering the OfficeSuite Professional 7 app by MobiSystems for free today, March 8. OfficeSuite Professional 7 allows customers to create, view, edit and print Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and attachments and view PDF files right on their NOOK. This incredibly useful and convenient app is regularly priced at $14.99, but is now available for free through the Free App Friday program.
“We are thrilled to offer NOOK customers a variety of exciting apps from top developers for free every week,” said Claudia Romanini, VP of NOOK Apps, NOOK Media, LLC. “NOOK Free Fridays is the perfect way to highlight our vast offering of exciting content, including apps for gaming, entertainment, productivity and more available in the NOOK Store while offering our customers a great value.”
The NOOK Store features all of the most popular and bestselling top 100 app titles for tablets available anywhere, including the hottest games, as well as lifestyle, productivity, news, entertainment and reading apps. The NOOK Store also provides helpful age recommendations for parents and lets customers browse by subject area to find the perfect app for their child among the broadest and the most curated app collection of kids’ educational apps on any Android store. With the quality collection of NOOK Apps™, customers can choose from a selection of only the best apps available, and enjoy a simple, organized way to discover and purchase apps – right alongside their favorite books, movies and TV shows, magazines, newsstand titles and more. Barnes & Noble’s award-winning line of tablets, including the 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+, brings to life all this exciting content at incredibly low prices starting at $199.
[Via: NOOK Blog]