Barnes & Noble Plans an Extensive E-Bookstore

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. On one hand, it's definitely a huge step in the right directions. It's great that so many more books (and particularly the ones Google is digitizing that are in the public domain; like my classmate Jenny Pilling, I also have issues with Google being the sole proprietors of said digitizing, but that's for another post) are going to be available via this device, as opposed to the locked-into-Amazon nature of the Kindle. I also like that the e-reader software will enable books bought on Barnes & Noble's website to be read on other devices (though unfortunately not on Sony's or Amazon's devices). It's still a little too all-inclusive, though. It's too top-down and tied in with a specific company (in this case, B&N) for my taste (i.e. for me to seriously consider purchasing one). Obviously, I understand that they're just trying to compete with Amazon and Sony and that they need to make money, but I still think an e-book reader that lets readers load exactly what they want on there will be the book version of the iPod. It just hasn't been made yet.