Kobo’s 30% offer – what can you buy?

I read quite a lot, especially eBooks, so my attention was grabbed by an email from Kobo, offering 30% off “select” books. That’s quite handy. But a look at the small print reveals this text:

“Discount code is valid for one time 30% off any eBook purchase excluding those from the following publishers: In the UK – Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Wiley, and Zondervan, and all respective subsidiary imprints.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s pretty much all the major publishers in the UK, isn’t it? Sure, there are some independent and smaller companies that aren’t covered by that. But I think it’s actually quite likely that the vast majority of books that many people might decide they want to buy are actually going to be excluded from the offer by that bit of small print.

And, of course, a lot of people won’t actually be certain who owns a particular publisher – they’ll just want the latest title by their favourite author.

I can’t help thinking that a fair number of people are going to be disappointed when they try to use the discount code. Wouldn’t it have been better to say “30% off some independent titles” or something like that?

Netflix arrives on UK Samsung SmartTV

Like many people, I suspect, I’ve been waiting eagerly for Netflix, and specifically for the client for Samsung’s SmartTV system. This morning, I was in luck – going into the SmartTV section, I was prompted for an update, which added Netflix in the ‘Recommended’ section of the App list.

Netflix on the Samsung SmartTV hub

That’s not all you need to do, however. After updating the SmartTV software, launching Netflix prompted me to update the TV’s firmware, and told me what buttons to press. You can go directly there, which many users might be tempted to do, while the instructions are on screen.

Unfortuantely, you can’t do that – if SmartTV is running, then you can’t update the firmware, so you need to back right out of it to the live TV signal, before you can update the firmware. That took my set from version 001018 to 001021. It takes a few minutes, and after that, you can go back in and start the Netflix app.

You’ll be asked if you’ve signed up, and if you say no, you then have to fire up a browser on your PC or Mac, and register for the trial that way; once that’s been done, you can sign in on the TV with your email address and password.

Sign up on your PC or Mac to activate Netflix

Sign in with an email address and password

It’s worth noting that, though the default way of signing up is via your Facebook account, there’s a link just below to register with an email address instead, so you don’t end up annoying your friends by constantly advertising Netflix to them. The default option selected when you finally get into Netflix proper on the TV is once again to link to your Facebook id, so they’re clearly pretty keen for you to do it.

Netflix seems keen for you to link to your Facebook account

I’m writing a more in depth piece for Register Hardware, which I’ll link to when it’s live.