Wednesday, October 20, 2010

LibreDigital Powers Starbucks Electronic Books Effort

Austin-based LibreDigital, the provider of electronic book technology for book publishers, is being a major effort by coffee chain Starbucks, to offer up electronic books at its stores. Starbucks said today that it has rolled out its Starbucks Digital Network, an effort to serve up premium content at its stores for users using its free Wi-Fi wireless services. Among the features of that service is an online channel which will offer up free access to electronic books to those Wi-Fi users, using a new, HTML5 electronic book reader which is being supplied by LibreDigital. Starbucks said it will provide content from the BOokish Reading Club and New Work City, with free access to books from Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster each week. Those books will be available from the LibreDigital SkyShelf, HTML5 reader. Financial details of the win were not disclosed. LibreDigital is headed by Russell P. Reeder, and is backed by S3 Ventures, Adams Capital Management, Triangle Peak Partners, HarperCollins Publishers, The New York Times Company and Noro-Moseley Partners.