According to Macworld, Barnes and Noble will offer free Wi-Fi via AT&T, which was previously a subscription service when it was launched in 2005. As part of the Wi-Fi offering, Barnes & Noble customers can opt-in to receive coupons to the in-store cafe, notices on author book signings and other messages when the customer logs in to the Wi-Fi service.
In addition, Barnes & Noble has recently launched an e-book store and plans to produce an e-book device in order to compete with Amazon"s Kindle. It"s currently offering 700,000 titles, which also includes Google"s 500,000 free public domain books as part of that number.
The Barnes & Noble e-book store will offer new releases and bestsellers at $9.99. Barnes says it expects its selection to increase to over one million titles over the course of the next year, including e-books from established publishers, independent direct-to-e-book publishers, and Google. When asked about how quickly the e-book store will grow, William J. Lynch, President of BN.com, said, "We"re committed to offering Barnes & Noble consumers every title available in digital format."