Apps for Barnes & Noble’s e-book reader, the Nook, is not a market you hear a lot about, but perhaps that’s because the money chain isn’t propery in place. But that could be changing after Tartu, Estonia-based mobile payments provider Fortumo partnered with B&N for Nook in-app payments support.
In-app payments have been critical part of nearly every other device’s ecosystem, which makes me curious why it hasn’t been done of the Nook before. The massive free-to-play game ecosystem basically depends on it, making this a nice addition. The Nook is a small market, but Fortumo tell us it’s an important market segment because NOOK Apps developers are reporting 3 to 4 times the app sales than with other stores.
This integration helps developers also the Android market who can use the same payment integration now on both platforms. Fortumo writes on their blog:
For Fortumo’s existing customers, it means that no additional development effort is needed. You can keep your current integration, just update the SDK (to ver 9.0.) and you’re good to go!
For NOOK developers, it’ll mean that with one simple Fortumo integration, not only are you able to make money on all NOOK tablets (which alone is more than worth the integration), but you can also distribute the same app in other global marketplaces and monetize with mobile operator billing.
Currently this integration is only in the pilot phase, but it will be opened to all developers soon. Fortumo has been around since 2007 and enables mobile operator billing in 73 countries.
More information can be found in Barnes & Noble’s press release.
