Barnes & Noble.com Launches Video Programming

Barnes & Noble.com (http://www.bn.com) unveiled Barnes & Noble Television (BNTV), a streaming video initiative with an e-commerce component.

Today's launch offers short films that the company called "bookVideos". These are three-minute films (created by film directors like Kenneth Druckerman, Mark Pellington and Pagan Harleman) on authors including Diane Keaton, Da Chen, and J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame.

"Authors and film personalities alike are all in accord over the importance of being involved in these creative, cutting edge shorts," said Steve Riggio, Vice Chairman, Barnes & Noble.com. "Now the Barnes & Noble.com shopping experience will be enhanced with original programming that has mass appeal."

Today's release about "The Hungry Ocean", is based on the book by Linda Greenlaw and directed by Wilson Van Law. Greenlaw is one of the heroes of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, a true story account of the storm of the century off the coast of Cape Cod.

The key, however, is to drive e-commerce sales. To that end, the video window has a "Buy Book" button to direct viewers to Barnes & Noble's site.

BNTV will have exclusive author interviews called "Behind the Word" and hosted by a variety of journalists and writers.

BNTV and bookVideo is a product of Rain, an independent production company. ASP Softcom (http://www.softcom.com) implemented BNTV's streaming media application.