Ok, not quite a niche, but the Barnes and Noble Color Nook seems to have caught the eye of the female demographic. Whether a purposeful strategic approach or not, the Nook seems to have drawn in a far larger skewing female audience. "On the surface, the reason for the strong performance of female-oriented publications on the Nook is relatively straightforward. Generically speaking, the iPad and other tablets are men's toys, while the Nook Color and other e-readers are more popular with women. According to data from Forrester Research, 56 percent of tablet owners are male, while 55 percent of e-reader owners are female." Is this because of a technological need or a content one?
Certainly, Barnes & Noble's marketing push has aimed squarely at the female audience to start. "And Barnes & Noble has marketed the $249 Nook Color toward females. Ads show women and girls reading it in various states of relaxation and repose: at the beach, in bed, on the couch." Executives at B&N have also been more collaborative with magazine publishers, with both the negotiation of the pricing model and with the actual production to get the print repurposed to digital. They recognized that content was needed to make the devices more valuable to its audience. More female magazines, more female readers, more female Nook purchasers.
It seems where the Apple iPad has excelled has been in mobile web application. But with printed content, the e-book readers have been excelling. Also too, Apple has been slower to approving subscription models for its iPad then the Nook or Kindle has been for their devices. Consequently, female readers have flocked to e-books to get book and magazine content in a digital form while male web users have flocked to the iPad. If we consider that all of these devices are still in their early acceptance stages, once content availability becomes ubiquitous across all devices, so should the percentages of male and female users also split evenly across all these same devices.
At that point, will consumers feel the need to own both devices or will the preference be to have tablets and e-readers start to look and work more like the other? For now, each is defining it's space and having a successful time doing it. And that may mean we own both a table and a e-book reader.
I completely disagree with this article. Many women purchase NOOKs as a gift for men, their children, graduates or as a gift for their family. More NOOKs are shared by couples or whole families. Your number might be correct if you could look at which nooks had only female publications on them. You will find that men are using NOOKs as much, if not more, than women.
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