Barnes & Noble.com revamps home page

Barnes & Noble.com is getting a new look. Starting Monday, the online site for the superstore chain will have a thoroughly revised home page, including a running scroll of featured releases, and a number of new offerings, including Barnes & Noble Review, a magazine that will be updated daily with reviews and interviews.

Monday's edition has an interview with Philip Roth and a review of his new novel, "Exit Ghost," by the president of the National Book Critics Circle, John Freeman.

"We wanted our site to have more motion, more content and more interactivity, and to have more of a sense of community," Marie Toulantis, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble.com, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Reflecting a general industry trend, Barnes & Noble.com has become increasingly important to Barnes & Noble Inc., Toulantis said. The online seller's percentage of the superstore's total sales have doubled in the past five years to 10 percent.

But competition, especially from Amazon.com, is relentless, and after two years of relatively minor changes on the Barnes & Noble.com site, an eternity in Internet time, it was time for an overhaul.

New features include "One on One" podcasts and a "See Inside" program that allows readers to "replicate the experience of browsing a book by flipping through selected pages." "Live at Barnes & Noble" takes advantage of the company's dual status as Internet presence and physical presence: Online visitors can views webcasts of readings at member stores, including upcoming appearances by Stephen Colbert, Alice Sebold and Richard Russo.

One option will not be available at Barnes & Noble.com: self-publishing, which Amazon.com has promoted through such services as CreateSpace and BookSurge. Barnes & Noble.com, meanwhile, had for years owned a small percentage of iUniverse.com, a leading self-publisher, but recently sold off its share.

"The market was too small," Toulantis says, noting that iUniverse has since been purchased by Author Solutions, Inc., which operates another leading self-publisher, AuthorHouse. "Consolidation makes perfect sense."