NBCUniversal's “The More You Know” Unveils Interactive eBook, Growing Up Online, In Collaboration with NBC News

eBook featuring NBC News Journalists Provides Internet Safety Tips for Parents, Teachers and Kids in Spanish and English

NEW YORK, June 10, 2013 – In support of National Internet Safety Month in June, NBCUniversal’s The More You Know, in collaboration with NBC News, has launched Growing Up Online, a free, interactive eBook for parents, teachers and kids about digital literacy and Internet safety.  The first release from The More You Know Learning Series, Growing Up Online offers informative, media-rich tools to help parents in discussions with their children about using technology responsibly and safely, as well as entertaining video comic books focused on real-life situations that might arise when kids go online. The eBook features NBC News journalists including Brian Williams, Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker and Dr. Nancy Snyderman speaking about the importance of keeping kids safe online.

Growing Up Online is available as a free download on Apple’s iBookstore for iPad and iPad Mini, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Kobo, as well as online for desktop and laptop viewing at www.themoreyouknow.com.

“When 52% of children have access to a mobile device and one in three kids has experienced cyberbullying, we are proud to provide resources and tools so that people can address the pressing issue of how to navigate the digital world securely,” said Beth Colleton, NBCUniversal Senior Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility.

In collaboration with leading experts from Common Sense Media and NetSmartz Workshop (an education program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children),Growing Up Online addresses the increasing concern around kids’ online privacy issues and cyberbullying in a unique way.

“We all have a part to play to ensure that our kids are navigating the digital world safely and responsibly” said Jim Steyer, CEO and Founder, Common Sense Media. “The eBook content is relevant and practical, and it's organized to encourage conversations between parents and kids. With the right tools and guidance, every kid can thrive with media and technology."

The eBook will soon be made available for Google Play for Android devices along with Spanish language editions releasing to all of these retailers in the coming weeks.

"Our goal in teaching Internet safety is to empower families and their children to make smarter and safer decisions when they are online," said National Center for Missing & Exploited Children CEO, John Ryan. "Education is critical and this free resource teaches families how they can enjoy the benefits of the Internet while avoiding some of the risks."

To download Growing Up Online and learn about digital safety and internet security, visit http://www.themoreyouknow.com/ebooks/ and start a conversation with your kids.

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About "The More You Know"

For more than two decades, NBCUniversal’s Emmy award-winning The More You Know public service campaign has given viewers easy-to-use, concrete, manageable steps to help set realistic change in motion. This multi-platform campaign, through its public service announcements, digital content, programming and community outreach efforts and The More You Know Learning Series eBooks, focuses on some of the country’s most important social issues in the core areas of education, diversity, health and the environment. The More You Know partners with leading nonprofits and government agencies to ensure we deliver the most credible, useful, timely information possible.

For more information contact:

Amanda Collins
(212) 664-4732

Amanda.Collins@nbcuni.com

The New Kindles: Is It Me or Is It Hot In Here?

This week Amazon announced a new line of Kindle eReaders that will undoubtedly secure their dominance in the selling, marketing, and publishing of eBooks during the holiday season and beyond.

Throughout the entire press conference, the mostly silent crowd listened carefully as CEO Jeff Bezos introduced several devices with a range of price points, in essence making digital reading accessible to the masses.

Of course, all were there to learn about Amazon's highly anticipated tablet dubbed Kindle Fire and they were not disappointed. The 7" device is light, well designed, and fully optimized to consume Amazon's wealth of digital products such as eBooks, Music, Movies, Magazines, and much more. In order to make all these offerings seamlessly available on this Android driven tablet, Amazon also announced their own proprietary cloud browser called Silk, which seems to be the key to making everything come together in a smooth, integrated, and intuitive way. Personally, I'm not a fan of the smaller screen experience, and I doubt I'm alone with this point of view, which must be why there is much speculation that a 10" Kindle Fire will be released sometime early next year. Regardless, other than iPad2, the Kindle Fire will most likely be the "must-have" gadget this winter and should be popping up everywhere on December 26th.

That said, the Fire wasn't the Kindle I found most intriguing. For me, it was the $79 eInk Kindle with Special Offers that really caught my attention. At this price, practically anyone who's been waiting to buy a simple digital eReader that both looks and works great can now afford to own one. And once purchased, those on a tight budget will find enough free and public domain titles available in the Kindle store or from their local library to read for a lifetime (or at least until the next Kindles come out).

There were two additional versions of Kindles with 6" Pearl eInk touchscreens and slightly higher price-points that were also introduced, but this was unsurprising. After Barnes & Noble released their latest Nook, which had similar features, no one had any doubt that Amazon would do the same.

One new feature that Jeff Bezos demonstrated for the touch devices was something called X-Ray, which is meant to provide deeper information described as the "bones of the book." I imagine this development, along with the ability to look up word definitions, note taking, etc., will only add to the overall enhancements that distinguish reading on a Kindle vs. a print book and I look forward to giving it a try.

You can watch the entire press conference here.

Overall, what concerns me most is whether or not the likes of Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Sony can continue to compete with Amazon in the eReader market. Of these three I suppose Sony can continue to stay in the game from the sales of other products like TVs and Playstations, but what about the others? Will sales from non-book products such as plush toys and stationary be enough for B&N to lower the cost of a Nook or Nook Color in any meaningful way? Can Kobo afford to reduce the price of their device to $50 and still be profitable? Only time will tell, but as of now the future of eReading looks like it might boil down to just Amazon and Apple leaving authors and publishers with very few options when it comes to selling eBooks on a grand scale.

What do you think? Will the book industry be able to stand the heat?

Nook & Kobo: eReaders with a Touch of Innovation

I recently had an opportunity to play around with the Nook Simple Touch Reader and the Kobo Touch Edition, both which came out this past June.

Overall these new eReaders are vast improvements over the previous models and here's my experience using each device:

Nook: The Simple Touch Reader

The first thing you notice is the complete overhaul of the design, which looks nothing like the Nook 1st Edition. This time Barnes & Noble decided to abandon the dual screen approach and focus on delivering a solid product with minimal bells and whistles. I have written about the first Nook and was not a fan of the hybrid approach.

The second thing you notice is how it feels in your hands. The exterior has a nice, gentle, rubbery feel, and the back is somewhat concave, making it really comfortable to hold. Taking a page from Apple, it has very few buttons that seem to disappear since they're beautifully integrated within the wide border that surrounds the screen. And that border contributes to the comfort factor, inviting the user to hold the eReader with two hands. But this Nook is incredibly light, so holding it with one hand is no problem.

The third thing that becomes immediately apparent is the touchscreen display. I'm really impressed by the responsiveness and you can effortlessly page through and bring up navigation with either a tap or a simple touch of the main button. This eReader truly lives up to its name. The quality of the display is very good, but unfortunately not great, and that's the only negative thing I have to say about this latest Nook.

The 6" Pearl eInk display is meant to rival the Kindle 3 (which is not touchscreen), but I'm sorry, it does not. In a side by side comparison the difference is obvious. It might be due to the additional layer necessary to make the screen touch sensitive, but the latest Sony Readers look just as sharp as Kindle 3 and those are touchscreen devices as well, so I'm not sure what happened here. For me, that's the only disappointment because if the display was killer, the device would be too.

But overall I believe B&N has done great job of taking the eReading experience to the next level by keeping things simple and offering an affordable device that any devotee of the bookstore chain will want to own.

Kobo: Touch Edition

I've written before about the Kobo eReader and have always been a fan. It's consistently been a good, portable, lightweight device that hasn't tried to be anything more elaborate than that. And I mean this in the best way possible.

You could load Kobo with a bunch of books and take it just about anywhere without worrying whether or not this inexpensive eReader fit in your carry on, was dropped, got sand on it, or whatever. The body was made of plastic, but didn't feel cheap, and the ingenious quilted back made it a pleasure to hold.

Now we have the touch edition and overall it's very much the same cute, lightweight, easy-to-use eReader the Kobo has always been except, (you guessed it), its got a touchscreen!

I found the screen to be sensitive and the response time pretty fast. The navigation is simple and intuitive and the big toggle button found on previous models has been replaced with one slender home button. All nice developments for sure, but again, the 6" Pearl eInk display has less contrast than the Kindle 3 or the Sony Readers. And again, that's disappointing, because like B&N, Kobo misses out on delivering the "wow" factor.

I've read other blog posts that point out how both the latest Nook and Kobo should've been released with displays that not just attempted to match, but instead surpassed that of Kindle 3. That's hard to dispute since this fall Kindle 4 will most certainly include an improved Pearl eInk screen with touch capability and even higher contrast. And you can bet these latest models from Amazon will be aggressively priced, so they're going to be hard to beat as the eReader of choice as we head into the holiday season.

That said, Barnes & Noble has the advantage of synching the Nook with in-store promotions at locations throughout the U.S. and Kobo, a Canadian company, is working hard to establish an international presence. Kobo also includes a social media feature called Reading Life that awards quirky badges to users in the spirit of FourSquare and GetGlue. Time will tell whether or not these efforts will attract customers away from Amazon, the current leader of the pack.

Touch: The Future of eReading

It's great to see both Barnes & Noble and Kobo introducing innovations to the eReader market and word on the street is that Sony will soon be releasing a new line of their touchscreen devices, which is good news since they usually add something inventive to the mix. There is no doubt touch is here to stay and any eReader that doesn't feature this functionality will instantly feel archaic, like the recently released "Google integrated" Story from iRiver.

Regardless, if you're seriously thinking about purchasing a dedicated eReader this year, you'd be "touched" not to wait until the new Kindles are announced. By then there'll be plenty of devices to choose from and surely one will meet all your digital reading needs.

If not, there's always the (rumored) Amazon tablet ;-)