News sources all over the web are asizzle with the monumental news story that the Borders ebook store, powered by Kobo, is now live and open for business.
Additionally, Borders released Android and Blackberry apps to complement their apps for the iPad, iPhone, iPod, plus PC and Mac computers.
Wait. Hold on one second.
What?
Don’t you mean the Kobo bookstore?
No. The Borders ebook store powered by Kobo Books is now open.
Uh . . . Hasn’t the Kobo bookstore been open for a long time?
Well, yes. It has.
So what’s the big hubbub? Isn’t the Borders store exactly like the Kobo ebook store, with basically the same prices and selection?
No. Not exactly. First off, it’s only for US customers. And second, the Borders app uses red headers instead of blue, with a red buy button instead of a green one. Otherwise the formats, search options, descriptions, and prices are pretty much exactly the same, yes.
Don’t you think that’s a trifle arbitrary? It’s kind of like Amazon subbing out the Kindle store to a company—let’s call them Monkey Brain Books—that sells Kindles to inner city zoologists and decides to put their brand name on the existing Kindle ebook store that’s been around for years, and redo the apps to say Monkey Brain Books.
Yeah. It is kind of odd, isn’t it? But then again this back and forth we’ve been having seems off kilter too.
Yeah, and a little forced.
Better to get on with it then.
Okay.