Barnes & Noble is looking to sell assets and may spin off the Nook. It looks like they're running out of money. This can happen when you're trying to develop a new business at the same time your old business is collapsing--you just don't have the funds to invest properly in the new line or to get past that initial money-losing period of development.
It will be interesting to see what happens to their Web site and the Nook. (Nobody wants the brick-and-mortar bookstores--not even Barnes & Noble itself.) A new player who isn't encumbered by B&N's financial history could step in and make a big success of one or the other, or both could just go away. B&N itself is obviously going down, and I am not optimistic regarding their prospects of finding a buyer for their more-appealing assets: Their problems are longstanding and well-known, so at this point any potential buyer will probably wait until B&N actually goes into bankruptcy and then snap up those assets on the cheap.
(Oh, and I've been unproductive the past couple of days because of kids and general life crap, but I should get back in the saddle today.)