Barnes & Noble.com Acquires Equity Stake in MightyWords; Companies Envision Huge Market for Digital Content.Business & Multimedia Editors NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2000 Barnes & Noble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) (www.bn.com) announced today that it has invested approximately $20 million for a 25 percent equity stake in MightyWords, formerly a subsidiary of Fatbrain.com (Nasdaq: FATB FATB Florida Association of Ticket Brokers ) and a leading provider of digital content. The companies also announced an agreement to distribute MightyWords content through the Barnes & Noble.com Web site, www.bn.com, further enabling the broad distribution of unique digital content from best-selling best·sell·er also best seller n. A product, such as a book, that is among those sold in the largest numbers. best authors, leading publishers, branded content Branded Content, also known as Branded entertainment and Advertainment, is a relatively new form of advertising medium that blurs conventional distinctions between what constitutes advertising and what constitutes entertainment. providers and professionals. "Our investment in MightyWords is further evidence of our belief that a huge, untapped market for digital content exists," said Steve Riggio, vice chairman of Barnes & Noble.com. "We plan to use the MightyWords digital publishing platform to dramatically expand the amount of content we offer. It will enable us to supplement what already is the largest selection of in-stock books on the planet with what will eventually be hundreds of thousands of articles. Best of all, their technology does not require a dedicated reading device as it is utilizes Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format) The de facto standard for document publishing from Adobe. On the Web, there are countless brochures, data sheets, white papers and technical manuals in the PDF format. format, which has an installed base of more than 100 million PCs. This means customers have the option of reading MightyWords content on their PCs or laptops or can choose to produce a high quality printed version from their desktop printers." "MightyWords will also enable us to foster a vibrant marketplace for content that falls outside the bounds of traditional publishing," Mr. Riggio added. "It will provide established writers with a new distribution channel for their intellectual property. We believe it will both inspire forms of publishing we have yet to imagine as well as revive the lost art of publishing in serial format, as Dickens and Dumas did more than 100 years ago. In short, it puts the power to publish into the hands of the authors, which is where it belongs." "The MightyWords proposition has taken the publishing industry by storm," said Chris MacAskill, chief executive officer of MightyWords. "There is a huge untapped reservoir of valuable content that does not fit into the traditional publishing model. With MightyWords, we are using an exciting new secure digital format to bring quality content to life. We see our agreement with Barnes & Noble.com as an important next step in building momentum for digital publishing." The Barnes & Noble.com investment is part of a $36 million round of funding announced separately today by MightyWords. Additional financing comes from Vulcan Ventures, which has invested $10 million, and another $6 million from other investors. Fatbrain.com will retain a percentage ownership in MightyWords, which will operate as an independent company. Under the terms of the agreement, Mr. MacAskill will remain as chief executive officer of MightyWords and is a member of the board of directors. Additional board members include Mr. Riggio, Dennis Capovilla, chief executive officer of Fatbrain.com, and Dianne Daggatt, director and investment analyst for Vulcan. MightyWords Content The digital marketplace is ideal for written content that until now has been unavailable to the public because of the limitations of traditional publishing and distribution methods. This includes works such as essays, short stories, condensed con·dense v. con·densed, con·dens·ing, con·dens·es v.tr. 1. To reduce the volume or compass of. 2. To make more concise; abridge or shorten. 3. Physics a. books, serialized pieces, updated chapters, movie scripts, speeches, white papers and research reports. Subject categories featured on the MightyWords site include business, finance, computing, Internet, health, home and garden, humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was , kids, literature and fiction, mystery, romance and science fiction. More than 1,500 additional sub-categories can be reached through keyword searches. Today there are more than 10,000 pieces available from top authors including Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel , and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the . , best-selling author of 2001: A Space Odyssey Odyssey (ŏd`ĭsē): see Homer. Odyssey Homer’s long, narrative poem centered on Odysseus. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey] See : Epic Odyssey , Seth Godin, author of Permission Marketing and former vice president of direct marketing for Yahoo!, Toni Morrison Noun 1. Toni Morrison - United States writer whose novels describe the lives of African-Americans (born in 1931) Chloe Anthony Wofford, Morrison , best-selling author of Beloved, Wendy Goldman Rohm, best-selling author of The Microsoft Files: The Secret Case Against Bill Gates (person) Bill Gates - William Henry Gates III, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, which he co-founded in 1975 with Paul Allen. In 1994 Gates is a billionaire, worth $9.35b and Microsoft is worth about $27b. , Catherine Lanigan, best-selling author of Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, Peter Norton Peter Norton (born November 14 1943) is an American software publisher, author, and philanthropist. Biography Norton was born in Aberdeen, Washington, U.S., North America. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, graduating in 1965. , computer software entrepreneur and writer, originator of Norton Utilities Widely used utility programs for Windows and Macintosh from Symantec. Used to fix problems and fine tune the machine, they include functions to restore deleted files, diagnose the disk for corrupted data, defragment the disk and clean up and track changes to the Registry. software, and Perri O'Shaughnessy Perri O'Shaughnessy is the pen name for two sisters, Mary and Pamela O'Shaughnessy, who live in Hawaii and California. Pamela, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a trial lawyer for sixteen years. Mary is a former editor and writer for multimedia projects. , best-selling author of Acts of Malice malice, in law, an intentional violation of the law of crimes or torts that injures another person. Malice need not involve a malignant spirit or the definite intent to do harm. . About MightyWords MightyWords has created a new digital marketplace for the written word. Through key partnerships with leading Internet sites including Barnes & Noble.com, MightyWords enables the mass distribution of compelling content from best-selling authors, top publishers, branded content providers and professionals. MightyWords uses a secure digital rights technology to instantly publish, distribute and sell unique and interesting written works to the world, earning royalties on every copy sold. Readers download the works directly to their PCs where they may be read on screen or printed out. Visit MightyWords at http://www.mightywords.com. About Fatbrain.com Fatbrain.com (Nasdaq:FATB) is the leader in managing, marketing and distributing information for businesses. Today, the company's Web-based services reach more than 2.25 million employee desktops at more than 350 of the Fortune 1000 corporations worldwide. Fatbrain.com's easy-to-use, comprehensive solutions deliver valuable corporate information in print and/or digital form. Last year, the company was named the second fastest-growing public company in Silicon Valley. Visit Fatbrain.com on the Web at http://www.fatbrain.com About Barnes & Noble.com Barnes & Noble.com is the first online bookseller to offer a vast in-stock inventory with an editorially rich bookselling environment. The company's online catalog Similar to an online library or databases in the information storage respect, ‘’’online catalogs’’’ allow potential customers to browse a company’s items for sale from a different location using the internet. includes more than three million titles, including virtually every book in print as well as more than 12 million listings from its nationwide network of out of print, rare and used book dealers. Its lightning fast proprietary search engine enables customers to locate specific titles quickly or to explore books on just about any imaginable i·mag·i·na·ble adj. Conceivable in the imagination: imaginable exploits. i·mag topic. With 800,000 titles on its shelves it now offers the largest selection of in-stock titles of any bookseller online. Encompassing over 30 miles of shelving shelv·ing n. 1. Shelves considered as a group. 2. Material for shelves. 3. An incline; a slope. shelving Noun 1. material for shelves 2. , it is the largest collection of books under one roof in the history of bookselling. More than 50,000 book publishers, including thousands of small and independent presses, university publishers and privately published books are represented. Barnes & Noble.com brings the world's best-known bookselling name to the Web with an editorially rich site that includes more than 500,000 synopses, book reviews, customer reviews, table of contents, articles and interviews. It hosts daily live author chats, bringing readers and writers together in lively interactive discussions. Customers of Barnes & Noble stores can find a nationwide store directory, complete with driving instructions and listings of local events. Rated No. 1 by Forbes.com as the best bookselling site on the Web two years running, the company strives to become the single best place to buy books online. Barnes & Noble.com's excellence in e-commerce extends to the music business, where it was voted by Forbes.com as the No. 1 music site on the Web. Cited by Forbes.com for being "best-of-class for anyone who wants to learn about the music they're buying" it features a classical music superstore su·per·store n. A very large retail store that stocks highly diversified merchandise, such as groceries, toys, and camera equipment, or a wide variety of mechandise in a specific product line, such as computers or sporting goods. and is distinguished by an emphasis on jazz, world music and Broadway show tunes. As in its book site, Barnes & Noble.com's music site has extensive editorial features from both in-house editors and licensed content. Barnes & Noble.com is an industry leader in the burgeoning market for electronic books. Its site features more than 4,000 eBook titles that can be viewed on the Rocket eBook One of the first electronic books. Introduced in 1998 by NuvoMedia Inc., Palo Alto, CA, it weighed in at 22 ounces and held the equivalent of approximately 10 novels. Like a conventional book, the Rocket let you annotate in the margin, underline passages and set bookmarks. portable book reader. The company will dramatically expand its offering for eBooks when it opens its eBook superstore in summer 2000, featuring the new Microsoft Reader Microsoft Reader is a Microsoft program for reading of e-books. The current version for desktops is 2.6.1 (Build), copyright 2000-2007, and requires Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows XP Tablet Edition - UMPC only. Version 2.1. platform, which will enable users to download eBooks to any PC, laptop or Pocket PC and open the market for eBooks to more than 100 million users. The company believes that in the not too distant future it will offer digital versions of virtually every book in print. In May 2000 Barnes & Noble.com pioneered its Same-Day Delivery service to its Manhattan, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of customers. This rapid delivery service enables the huge residential and working population of Manhattan to get delivery within hours of virtually any book in print from today's bestsellers to the most hard-to-find titles from small publishers. The service also includes delivery of more than 100,000 music CDs. Barnes & Noble.com's e-commerce initiative extends to the B2B (Business to Business) Refers to one business communicating with or selling to another. See B2B e-commerce, B2C and B2G. B2B - business to business arena, where its Business Solutions program provides Fortune 1000 companies with a turn-key Intranet bookstore, enabling them to streamline and control their book purchasing process Purchasing Purchasing is the formal process of buying goods and services. The Purchasing Process can vary from one organization to another but there are some key elements that are common throughout The process usually starts with a 'Demand' or requirements . Barnes & Noble.com is also a leader in mobile commerce through its Barnes & Noble On the Go wireless shopping. Customers can now shop the company's Web site from portable devices such as PDAs and mobile phones, giving them access to any book, anywhere, any time. Barnes & Noble.com has made strategic investments in companies whose products and services enable it to increase its offerings in information products and services that are compatible with its core business. By doing so the company is able to expand its scope by benefiting from the investments, marketing and technology initiatives of industry leaders. To date, the company has invested in enews.com, the Internet's No. 1 site for discount magazine subscriptions; BuyEnlarge, which uses state-of-the-art technology to produce prints and posters on demand; notHarvard.com, the pioneer in developing online branded universities and the concept of eduCommerce, and MightyWords, a leading provider of digital content. |
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