News has been all over the web that Barnes & Noble has decided to split off its Nook division and sell it off. I hope this actually means good things for the Nook in the next couple of years. I am an Amazon Kindle user, but most of my family uses Nooks (sink versions). I personally think they are fantastic ereaders and they do have a really nice interface. It seems like B&N itself didn't know how to properly push the Nook devices out. Perhaps with some new management they can aggressively target the Nook like it needs to be targeted.
It seems like the biggest problems that the Nook has had in its existence so far has been its marketing and its online services. When was the last time you saw a TV ad for a Nook? The answer is never, whereas Amazon has done a very good job of producing Kindle TV ads around the holidays. The Nook has also suffered quite a bit with its online delivery services. They have had some significant problems and they tried to implement a Whispersync type of service to sync your progress up to the cloud and other apps. For a long time it only partially worked. If a new team can get in there and fix two of these main problems I think it could help a lot.
I would also say that they should ditch the tablet version and the whole multi-media approach. B&N has its history in books and literature. I think the Nook company could really own that space if they ditched the videos and music and went all in on the books (and may be magazines). I would love to see them really make a premium line of sink readers. Push that sink technology hard. The Kobo Aura HD has the highest resolution sink display right now and for hardcore readers that is a niche market I think could be profitable. Publishers seem eager at this point to fight back against Amazon just as they did with Apple and iTunes a few years ago. Nook could have an opportunity to strike some really good publishing deals.
Also, if you have ever been on the Nook sites they actually have a pretty good social media team going. They have some excellent blogs and online communities that push out some great content for fans of reading. It features some good interview and other content. They also have continually offered their "Free Book Friday's" deals which I think are a boon for readers. The problem is, it is near impossible to find these on B&N's website.
The Nook (and B&N in general) also really should highlight more that they are leveraging the epub format. Technically any book bought from the Kobo or Google Play stores can be side loaded onto a Nook without issue. KIndle's can't do that. It would be nice if Google Play or some other service could license a way to wirelessly send books purchased on these other stores right to the Nook wirelessly to alleviate the friction of side loading. The idea of having multiple stores accessible to your device is something that could be a great sell for the Nook hardware business.