Julie, The Average Nook Owner.... [ Edited ]

[PeterDe]

From http://seekingalpha.com/article/444591-barnes-noble-nook-needs-work-if-it-s-to-go-international?utm_...

For all the vagaries of the developer event,  Romanini (director of developer relations, Claudia Romanini) then delivered on some pretty amazing specifics on how the Nook is doing in the U.S.

She says that B&N has sold “millions of units” of the Nook. How does that work out in market share? IDC estimates that the Nook tablet accounted for 3.5 percent of all tablet shipments in Q4 2011, compared to the 54.7 percent held by the iPad from Apple (AAPL) and the 16.8 percent taken by the Kindle Fire in its short time on the market. The Nook is currently selling for $249 for its highest-range device.

She noted that at the moment “over 70 percent” of buyers of the Nook tablet are women aged between 25 and 45. They live within 15 minutes of a B&N store and often have kids. “When you go in, you can see kids running around loose in the store,” she said, adding that the stores have special, short tables for those little ones to try out apps.

“We are very focused on families and children,” she continued, and she says they know their tablet customer so well they have given her a name: Julie. “We know what Julie would like to buy and how to approach her.”

She says that “Julie” does not like to consume apps on phones because she is “a bit afraid of data consumption,” and because of that B&N has found a good way to market apps to her: by making them free when she is in the store to try them out. This, she calls, “approaching the device from a content perspective.”

She says that because of this mother/female focus, and the fact that the Android Market (now Google Play) is not very strong on female apps, B&N has put a big emphasis them in its Nook app store.

One-third are children’s and education apps; one-third are games; and one-third are lifestyle apps covering areas like fashion, food, health, fitness and travel. “Basically, anything that would interest a woman,” she said.

[keriflur]

Wow.  Hi B&N, I'm a woman, and uh, none of that interests me.  Just sayin'.

[TnTexas]

PeterDe: She noted that at the moment “over 70 percent” of buyers of the Nook tablet are women aged between 25 and 45. They live within 15 minutes of a B&N store and often have kids.

How the heck did they go about figuring this out I wonder. And I'd like to go on record as saying that while I fall in their 70% on all counts listed, I have no problem using apps on my smartphone and data consumption doesn't scare me in the least. And I would imagine the Android Market has a version of one kind or another of every single app in the B&N appstore so there are plenty of "female apps" (what exactly does this mean, anyway?) available there.

Ms Romanini and her "Julie" profile sound very patronizing to me. Blech. 

[TnTexas]

Interesting quote from the article"

An enlightening and frustrating evening in equal measure Monday in London, where Barnes & Noble sponsored a Nook developer event and panel discussion on the state of the tablet market. ....

Two developers told me they thought that Romanini’s characterization of the number of apps in Nook in the “thousands” — not tens or hundreds of thousands; just thousands — was alarming: yes, it means more visibility/less crowding for the apps that are there, but goes very much against the ethos of an active marketplace.

So it's not just a handful of us B&N customers here on the boards who find B&N's app store substandard.

[keriflur]

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TnTexas wrote:

PeterDe: She noted that at the moment “over 70 percent” of buyers of the Nook tablet are women aged between 25 and 45. They live within 15 minutes of a B&N store and often have kids.

How the heck did they go about figuring this out I wonder. And I'd like to go on record as saying that while I fall in their 70% on all counts listed, I have no problem using apps on my smartphone and data consumption doesn't scare me in the least. And I would imagine the Android Market has a version of one kind or another of every single app in the B&N appstore so there are plenty of "female apps" (what exactly does this mean, anyway?) available there.

Ms Romanini and her "Julie" profile sound very patronizing to me. Blech. 

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These types of stats are common across businesses - marketing departments use them to target their advertising and buyers use them to determine what products to stock.  It's more the delivery that's patronizing here, IMO.

[Reisnice]

>>How would they know that?<<

Actually, those stats are pretty rudimentary for most marketing depts. If a company wanted to spend the effort and a little money on data to mine, they could fairly easily tell you what those women's income was, what their family's was, what type of cars they drive, what foods they prefer, how often they eat out, how much they travel and to where, whether they have pets and what kind, and lots more.  

A couple weeks ago, a few of us chuckled when an ad popped up on the right side of all our BN forum screens at the same time, during a discussion where the posts had words that some algorithm thought were related to the product.

While we were posting those words !!!

Welcome to privacy 2012 style.

Unfortunately, I don't fit any of their stats, so I feel pretty left out...

[Sun_Cat]

keriflur wrote:

It's more the delivery that's patronizing here, IMO.

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I wouldn't call it so much patronizing as gag-me-with-a-spoon saccharine. I can just imagine how the (probably mostly male) developers must have received such a presentation.

Like TnTexas, I'm bemused and befuddled by the phrase "female apps" to the point where I don't think I really want to know what it means. It sounds like a euphemism for something a man is better off not knowing.

And won't someone please do something about all those "kids running around loose in the store"? Like maybe tell "Julie" that she ought to raise them to behave like civilized beings in public? Thank you very much.

[Fred011]

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Sun_Cat wrote:

keriflur wrote:

It's more the delivery that's patronizing here, IMO.

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I wouldn't call it so much patronizing as gag-me-with-a-spoon saccharine. I can just imagine how the (probably mostly male) developers must have received such a presentation.

Like TnTexas, I'm bemused and befuddled by the phrase "female apps" to the point where I don't think I really want to know what it means. It sounds like a euphemism for something a man is better off not knowing.

And won't someone please do something about all those "kids running around loose in the store"? Like maybe tell "Julie" that she ought to raise them to behave like civilized beings in public? Thank you very much.

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"Behave like civilized beings in public", Sun_Cat I think you might have given away a hint at your age.  I believe those days are over and "free-range" kids are all the rage now!

[Sun_Cat]

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Fred011 wrote: 

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"Behave like civilized beings in public", Sun_Cat I think you might have given away a hint at your age.  I believe those days are over and "free-range" kids are all the rage now!

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Apparently not all Julies agree with you, Fred. This juxtaposition is just too delicious. Here's a book that showed up today on the freebies thread on the NOOK Books board. Do note the author's first name.

Raising Kids with Love and Limits, by Julie Barnhill 

[Fred011]

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Sun_Cat wrote:

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Fred011 wrote: 

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"Behave like civilized beings in public", Sun_Cat I think you might have given away a hint at your age.  I believe those days are over and "free-range" kids are all the rage now!

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Apparently not all Julies agree with you, Fred. This juxtaposition is just too delicious. Here's a book that showed up today on the freebies thread on the NOOK Books board. Do note the author's first name.

Raising Kids with Love and Limits, by Julie Barnhill 

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Ah.... but I might still be correct. Please read the title again, and swear to me that the "limits" mentioned refer to the kids, and not the parents.