Barnes & Noble to Add Google Apps to Nook

Barnes & Noble, in an effort to strengthen the digital offerings of its Nook devices, will outfit its color tablets with Google Play, the one-stop shop for Google’s applications and software services, the bookseller said on Thursday.

The move is intended to give Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, a boost in the highly competitive tablet market after a disappointing holiday season for the Nook.

“It opens up a whole world of content and really gives HD and HD Plus a unique position,” William Lynch, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview, referring to the company’s two color tablets. “There’s no question this is going to accelerate sales.”

Barnes & Noble executives said Nook owners can choose from 700,000 apps, including Facebook, Twitter and Netflix - even Amazon’s Kindle app.

The announcement follows Barnes & Noble’s recent vow to focus more on digital content, including books, movies and popular apps, while beginning to moderate its investment in its digital hardware division.

In the quarter that ended Jan. 26, Nook revenue declined to $316 million, from $426 million over the same period the year ago.

“Of all the things that Barnes & Noble could do to expand its potential audience, running the features of Android that consumers like is a great step,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. “You can’t change the fundamentals of Barnes & Noble’s brand and their customer footprint and the economics of their business, but adding more Android features makes this product more appealing to more customers.”

After the recent holiday season, Mr. Lynch said on Thursday, Barnes & Noble learned that “the No.1 reason for nonbuyers in the tablet market, as it related to Nook, was the lack of breadth and apps.” That was, he said, “the one area where we were deficient.”

Michael Norris, senior analyst for Simba Information, said the deal with Google will help Barnes & Noble do what Amazon has done well: create a comprehensive online shopping center of nonbook media.

“I think Barnes & Noble is learning a few lessons from Amazon,” Mr. Norris said. “And that has to do with sweetening the deal and adding value for the consumer. Amazon has always had a greater variety of movie and video content, and I think Barnes & Noble is hoping to erase part of their entertainment deficit.”

Barnes & Noble’sseven-inch Nook HD sells for $199, and the nine-inch Nook HD Plus for $269.

Mr. Lynch said that Barnes & Noble executives had been talking about the possibility of a deal with Google for two years, but stepped up those discussions in the last four months.

To date, Barnes & Noble has sold more than 10 million Nooks in the United States; it introduced the product in 2009 as e-book sales took off.

New York Receives National Magazine Awards’ Top Prize

New York Receives Top Magazine Prize

New York magazine took the top honor at the National Magazine Awards on Thursday, receiving magazine of the year for its print and digital coverage.

The annual awards, which are given by the American Society of Magazine Editors, are considered the industry’s most coveted prizes. In giving the award to New York, the judges cited the magazine’s wrenching feature on caring for a dying parent, coverage of what the November election meant for the future and its cover showing Manhattan in dim lights days after Hurricane Sandy.

National Geographic received the highest number of awards with four honors, including best multimedia for its “Cheetahs on the Edge” article, which ran with its November iPad edition, and best tablet magazine. New York, The Atlantic and Texas Monthly each won two awards. New York also received the best magazine section award for its “Strategist” section.

The society gives out general excellence awards in several categories. This year, general excellence in print awards were given to National Geographic, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Outside and The Paris Review. The online magazine Pitchfork received the general excellence award for digital media.

National Geographic also won the photography award for its August, September and December issues while the fashion magazine W won the feature photography award for an article on Kate Moss called “Good Kate, Bad Kate” that appeared in its March issue. Saveur’s “Mexico Issue,” which was published in August, won for the best single-topic issue.

The other award recipients were praised for their content and their presentation. The Atlantic won for its Web site as well as for a September article by Ta-Nehisi Coates called “Fear of a Black President.”

Texas Monthly won the public interest award for its August article “Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives” by Mimi Swartz about the impact on women since cuts in 2011 to family planning funds. It also won for feature writing for “The Innocent Man,” a two-part article by Pamela Colloff published in November and December about a man accused of murdering his wife.

Stephen King won his second National Magazine Award in the fiction category, for his story “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” which ran in the September issue of Harper’s.

New York Receives National Magazine Awards’ Top Prize

New York Receives Top Magazine Prize

New York magazine took the top honor at the National Magazine Awards on Thursday, receiving magazine of the year for its print and digital coverage.

The annual awards, which are given by the American Society of Magazine Editors, are considered the industry’s most coveted prizes. In giving the award to New York, the judges cited the magazine’s wrenching feature on caring for a dying parent, coverage of what the November election meant for the future and its cover showing Manhattan in dim lights days after Hurricane Sandy.

National Geographic received the highest number of awards with four honors, including best multimedia for its “Cheetahs on the Edge” article, which ran with its November iPad edition, and best tablet magazine. New York, The Atlantic and Texas Monthly each won two awards. New York also received the best magazine section award for its “Strategist” section.

The society gives out general excellence awards in several categories. This year, general excellence in print awards were given to National Geographic, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Outside and The Paris Review. The online magazine Pitchfork received the general excellence award for digital media.

National Geographic also won the photography award for its August, September and December issues while the fashion magazine W won the feature photography award for an article on Kate Moss called “Good Kate, Bad Kate” that appeared in its March issue. Saveur’s “Mexico Issue,” which was published in August, won for the best single-topic issue.

The other award recipients were praised for their content and their presentation. The Atlantic won for its Web site as well as for a September article by Ta-Nehisi Coates called “Fear of a Black President.”

Texas Monthly won the public interest award for its August article “Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives” by Mimi Swartz about the impact on women since cuts in 2011 to family planning funds. It also won for feature writing for “The Innocent Man,” a two-part article by Pamela Colloff published in November and December about a man accused of murdering his wife.

Stephen King won his second National Magazine Award in the fiction category, for his story “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” which ran in the September issue of Harper’s.

New York Receives National Magazine Awards’ Top Prize

New York Receives Top Magazine Prize

New York magazine took the top honor at the National Magazine Awards on Thursday, receiving magazine of the year for its print and digital coverage.

The annual awards, which are given by the American Society of Magazine Editors, are considered the industry’s most coveted prizes. In giving the award to New York, the judges cited the magazine’s wrenching feature on caring for a dying parent, coverage of what the November election meant for the future and its cover showing Manhattan in dim lights days after Hurricane Sandy.

National Geographic received the highest number of awards with four honors, including best multimedia for its “Cheetahs on the Edge” article, which ran with its November iPad edition, and best tablet magazine. New York, The Atlantic and Texas Monthly each won two awards. New York also received the best magazine section award for its “Strategist” section.

The society gives out general excellence awards in several categories. This year, general excellence in print awards were given to National Geographic, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Outside and The Paris Review. The online magazine Pitchfork received the general excellence award for digital media.

National Geographic also won the photography award for its August, September and December issues while the fashion magazine W won the feature photography award for an article on Kate Moss called “Good Kate, Bad Kate” that appeared in its March issue. Saveur’s “Mexico Issue,” which was published in August, won for the best single-topic issue.

The other award recipients were praised for their content and their presentation. The Atlantic won for its Web site as well as for a September article by Ta-Nehisi Coates called “Fear of a Black President.”

Texas Monthly won the public interest award for its August article “Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives” by Mimi Swartz about the impact on women since cuts in 2011 to family planning funds. It also won for feature writing for “The Innocent Man,” a two-part article by Pamela Colloff published in November and December about a man accused of murdering his wife.

Stephen King won his second National Magazine Award in the fiction category, for his story “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” which ran in the September issue of Harper’s.

Advertising: In Online Video, Street Cred vs. Quality

In Online Video, Street Cred vs. Quality

Philip Montgomery for YouTube

Felicia Day, an actress and Web celebrity, at a YouTube presentation Wednesday.

AS online video becomes increasingly appealing to Madison Avenue as an advertising medium, a lively debate is under way that has all the intensity of those “Tastes great!” “Less filling!” arguments over Miller Lite beer in commercials made for a more traditional video medium, television.

Online Video Woos Madison Avenue Close Video See More Videos »

Jimmy Pitaro, co-president of Disney Interactive, said the need for high-quality content was greater than ever.

On one side are companies like Google, whose YouTube Web site now reports more than a billion unique visitors each month. At an elaborate Brandcast presentation on Wednesday evening, during the annual Digital Content NewFronts in New York, executives of Google and YouTube asserted that their approach of encouraging the creation by consumers of “authentic” video clips â€" known as user-generated content â€" is the best way to reach the audiences sought by advertisers.

“Video,” Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said at the beginning of the event, which was attended by about 1,500 people, “is becoming a global, shared experience.” That was underscored by the theme of the evening, “Generation C,” referring to the multitudes of members of the millennial generation who consume, create and curate copious amounts of digital content on a regular basis.

Rather than bringing movie and television stars on stage, as was done at the Brandcast during the Digital Content NewFronts last year, the focus was instead on YouTube’s homegrown stars.

One, Lindsey Stirling, is a dubstep violinist with a channel on youtube.com featuring a video that has been played 57.9 million times. Another, Felicia Day, is an actress whose YouTube channel focuses on gaming and culture.

Many of those YouTube celebrities â€" including the rapper Ben Haggerty, known as Macklemore from the duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis â€" told stories of how unpopular or different they were when they were younger and how YouTube allowed them a creative outlet they may not have found elsewhere.

“I don’t have to wait for somebody to tell me I’m not good enough,” said Ms. Stirling, who was eliminated from the quarterfinal round of the NBC competition reality series “America’s Got Talent” in 2010.

Ms. Day declared, “Technology can help you find people who are like you.”

Robert Kyncl, global head of content at YouTube, invited advertisers to create content on YouTube, saying that big media companies “are pouring dollars into YouTube, as well as countless venture-capital firms.” He offered examples of brands already using YouTube successfully, among them McDonald’s Canada, with a video explaining how its food is prepared for ads, and Fox Broadcasting, which created a video inspired by the Harlem Shake craze using characters from “The Simpsons.”

“Brands must create engaged fan communities,” Mr. Kyncl said.

On the other side of the debate are professional producers of content, many of which also create television series, movies and other intellectual property for mainstream media. During those presentations, senior managers of companies like Walt Disney and Sony played up the, well, professional nature of their content, calling it a superior environment for marketers’ messages.

“Quality content has never been more important,” Jimmy Pitaro, co-president of the Disney Interactive division of the Walt Disney Company, said at a Digital Content NewFronts event on Thursday morning, because “consumers are inundated with low-quality experiences, unfulfilling for them and for brands trying to reach them.”

That need for high-quality content extends beyond online video, Mr. Pitaro asserted, into realms like apps, blogs, video blogs and games played on video consoles or online.

He described new offerings from Disney Interactive in that vein like Story, which is to be introduced next week in the Apple App Store. Story is meant to help iPhone owners edit photographs and video clips into narratives that can be shared. A commercial will promote Story â€" which brands will be able to sponsor, Mr. Pitaro said â€" with this theme: “There’s a story on your phone waiting to be told.”

Also planned, with an introduction date of Aug. 18, is Infinity, which Mr. Pitaro described as “the biggest, most ambitious gaming initiative ever undertaken by Disney Interactive.” Plans call for Infinity to begin as a console game and then be offered online, where sponsorships will be available; Infinity will invite players to create original stories using familiar characters from both the Disney and Pixar archives.

At a time when “anybody with a camera can make a show,” there is “a flight to high-quality content,” said Eric Berger, executive vice president for digital networks at the Sony Pictures Television unit of the Sony Corporation of America and general manager of Crackle, its online entertainment network.

“There’s no silver bullet, but a lot of big, blue-chip brands are going to be more comfortable associating with quality brands they can trust” like Sony, Mr. Berger said in an interview before a Digital Content NewFronts presentation that he is to make on Friday morning.

Another problem advertisers may encounter with user-generated content, Mr. Berger said, is that a commercial may appear during “a decent piece of content, but what auto-plays or comes after is a not-so-decent piece of content.”

“Just like we make ‘The Shield,’ ‘Justified’ and ‘Rescue Me,’ ” he added, citing drama series produced by Sony Pictures Television, “we’re creating shows like that” for Crackle.

Crackle will announce second-season renewals for three original online video series, Mr. Berger said, including “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” hosted by Jerry Seinfeld. Among the new Web series is “Cleaners,” an action-crime show with stars including David Arquette, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Gina Gershon, and a music documentary with a working title of “Playing It Forward,” whose producers include Robert Downey Jr.

Crackle is also to announce what is being billed as its first major feature, “Extraction,” a 90-minute show in the action-thriller genre with a cast that includes Sean Astin and Danny Glover.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 3, 2013, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: In Online Video, Street Cred vs. Quality.

Kurtz Leaves Daily Beast After Column Is Retracted

Howard Kurtz, the longtime media critic, is departing as the Washington bureau chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, the head of those publications said Thursday.

Howard Kurtz.

Tina Brown, the editor in chief, said in a Twitter post that Mr. Kurtz had “parted company” with the two online news sites. She did not give a reason, but the announcement came as Mr. Kurtz has been embroiled in a controversy over a blog post he wrote about the basketball player Jason Collins.

Mr. Collins co-wrote a Sports Illustrated article that was published on Monday in which he acknowledged that he was gay. In a post earlier this week, Mr. Kurtz lambasted Mr. Collins for not admitting in the article that he had once been engaged to be married.

But Mr. Collins had written about his engagement to a woman. The error made it appear as if Mr. Kurtz had not read the material, and he became the target of gleeful bashing on Twitter. The Daily Beast retracted the article on Thursday.

Mr. Kurtz, one of the most prominent media critics in the country, particularly from his time at The Washington Post, also came under scrutiny for the time he was spending on other ventures. On Wednesday, the Huffington Post columnist Michael Calderone wrote about Mr. Kurtz’s writing for and promoting an unaffiliated Web site called The Daily Download.

“This is not a reaction to the Jason Collins story or the Daily Download situation,” said a staff member at The Daily Beast, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the organization wanted Ms. Brown’s statement to be its only public comment.

“It’s been apparent for some time that Howie has a lot of other irons in the fire,” the staff member said.

In a Twitter message posted about an hour after his exit was reported, Mr. Kurtz wrote: “I’ve enjoyed my time at the Daily Beast but as we began to move in different directions, both sides agreed it was best to part company.”

He added in another message, “This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website.”

A spokeswoman for CNN did not respond to a request for comment about whether Mr. Kurtz would continue to host “Reliable Sources,” the channel’s Sunday media review show. Mr. Kurtz has led the show for over a decade.

Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

Some Retailers Rethink Their Role in Bangladesh

Some Retailers Rethink Role in Bangladesh

Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images

Bangladeshis buried the dead Wednesday in Dhaka. The collapse of a clothing manufacturing center killed more than 400 people.

Ever since a building with garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh last week, killing more than 400 people, Western apparel companies with ties to the country have scrambled to address public concerns about working conditions there.

Protesters at a May Day rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They shouted for better working conditions in the nation’s garment factories.

Benetton repeatedly revised its accounts of goods produced at one of the factories, while officials at Gap, the Children’s Place and other retailers huddled to figure out how to improve conditions, and some debated whether to remain in Bangladesh at all.

At least one big American company, however, had already decided to leave the country â€" pushed by the last devastating disaster, a fire just six months ago that killed 112 people.

The Walt Disney Company, considered the world’s largest licenser with sales of nearly $40 billion, in March ordered an end to the production of branded merchandise in Bangladesh. A Disney official told The New York Times on Wednesday that the company had sent a letter to thousands of licensees and vendors on March 4 setting out new rules for overseas production.

Less than 1 percent of the factories used by Disney’s contractors are in Bangladesh, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The company’s efforts had accelerated because of the November fire at a factory that labor advocates asserted had made Disney apparel. The Disney ban also extends to other countries, including Pakistan, where a fire last September killed 262 garment workers.

Disney’s move reflects the difficult calculus that companies with operations in countries like Bangladesh are facing as they balance profit and reputation against the backdrop of a wrenching human disaster.

Bangladesh has some of the lowest wages in the world, its government is eager to lure Western companies and their jobs, and many labor groups want those big corporations to stay to improve conditions, not cut their losses and run.

But as the recent string of disasters has shown, there are great perils to operating there.

“These are complicated global issues and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution,” said Bob Chapek, president of Disney Consumer Products. “Disney is a publicly held company accountable to its shareholders, and after much thought and discussion we felt this was the most responsible way to manage the challenges associated with our supply chain.”

The public disclosure of Disney’s directive came two days after officials from two dozen retailers and apparel companies, including Walmart, Gap, Carrefour and Li & Fung, met near Frankfurt with representatives from the German government and nongovernment organizations to try to negotiate a plan to ensure safety at the more than 4,000 garment factories in Bangladesh.

With 3.6 million garment workers and more than $18 billion in apparel exports last year, Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest apparel exporter after China.

Walmart, Gap and other companies said on Wednesday that they were already taking action, including paying for Bangladesh factory managers to be trained in fire safety. But labor advocacy groups are pushing them to do more, especially to help finance factory improvements like fire escapes.

“Companies feel tremendous pressure now,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory-monitoring group based in Washington. “The apparel brands and retailers face a greater level of reputation risk of being associated with abusive and dangerous conditions in Bangladesh than ever before.”

On Wednesday, thousands of people continued to gather around the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. As emergency personnel dug through the rubble for yet another day, many relatives of the missing carried signs, holding out diminishing hope that a loved one would be found. A mass burial of unclaimed bodies was conducted as the death count climbed above 400.

In Rome, Pope Francis voiced sympathy for Bangladeshi garment workers on Wednesday, saying he was shocked to learn that many of them earned just $40 a month. “This is called slave labor,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 2, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Retailers Rethink Roles In Bangladesh.

Big Opening for ‘Iron Man 3’ in China

LOS ANGELESâ€" “Iron Man 3” has reasserted Hollywood’s place in China, at least for the moment. Hollywood.com, citing a report from China, said the first day’s take on Wednesday for Marvel Entertainment’s action film was almost $21 million, beating the previous one-day record set by “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” in 2011.

For much of the last year, domestic Chinese films have been overshadowing those from American studios in China, and some observers had speculated that “So Young,” a Chinese romance, might challenge American-made blockbusters for primacy with moviegoers in a head-to-head showdown. In the end, Chinese officials did some last-minute juggling of dates that kept the films from opening in direct competition. “So Young” opened earlier, and did well, with an opening-weekend take of about $22 million at the box-office.

But “Iron Man 3,” which has been heavily promoted and includes scenes shot especially for the Chinese market, is poised to do much bigger business, with well over $300 million in worldwide ticket sales before its opening in the United States on Friday.