Barnes & Noble Offering Free WiFi At Bookstrores
Bookseller Barnes & Noble announced that its customers can access free WiFi at its stores across the United States. It is worth noting that Barnes & Nobles has been offering WiFi previously but at a price of $3.95 for every two hour session.
All customers visiting any of Barnes & Noble stores also will be able to download and preview more than 700,000 eBook titles, the bookseller said. Users with laptops, Wi-Fi equipped smartphones and other wireless devices can now surf the Web in stores without having to set up an account or pay.
It looks like you can also sign up, somehow, for coupons to be sent to your phone when you enter a B&N Wi-Fi area, but they’re not specific about how that works. The bookseller operates 777 stores in 50 states and offers more than 700,000 e-book titles.
Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio said in a statement, “Barnes & Noble pioneered the concept of retail stores as community centers. By providing no-fee Wi-Fi access, we are not only meeting our customers’ needs, but extending the sense of community that has always been in our stores.”
In an interview yesterday with jkontherun, Steve Pendergrast, CTO of Fictionwise, the e-bookseller recently purchased by Barnes & Noble, said that the chain “will have announcements in the coming months that address further innovation in the works.”
