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Paul Sawers
Paul Sawers was a reporter with The Next Web in various roles from May 2011 to November 2014. Follow Paul on Twitter: @psawers or check h Paul Sawers was a reporter with The Next Web in various roles from May 2011 to November 2014. Follow Paul on Twitter: @psawers or check him out on Google+.
Kobo has rolled out a new version of its Android app which will go some way towards opening its services to a wider demographic and challenge Amazon’s almighty Kindle.
With the latest update, readers can use the app in French, Spanish, Italian, German or Dutch, in addition to English.
Kobo was founded in Toronto in late 2009, and today it claims more than nine million registered users across 190 countries. Today’s news follows June’s year of triple digit growth announcement, as it gears up for global expansion following its acquisition by Japanese Internet powerhouse Rakuten.
Additional features included in this update now give users in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany:
- Facebook Timeline integration: Kobo users can share what they’re reading with friends and family.
- Kobo Pulse: Users can create conversations with other readers within their ‘favourite’ books.
- 2-page landscape view for tablets: View two pages just like a real book.
Kobo has almost three million titles across sixty languages available for its eReader device, and now the interface itself is available in more languages, this will help it grab a larger piece of the eReading pie. Since January this year, the company has more than doubled its employee base, with growth most notable in Canada, the US, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Australia, Luxembourg, and France.
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