Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Would B&N be worth more as a pure digital play?
As a dot-com without the anchor of the storefront leases?
What value for 25% of the US ebook business with potential to grow worldwide?
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Despite claims (and wishes of some) the paper book business is far from dead.
In my town (of 40,000 people), the only Waldenbooks store gone probably 7-8 years ago. B&N has been the only place to buy new books for years now. With Borders gone I'm sure things will improve for them. I'd bet my local B&N does pretty good business due to its lack of competition - there's certainly always a lot of people in there.
As far as seperating the digital and physical arms...bad move. I think the hands-on returns, tech support, and experience with devices is what helps give them some oomph vs the Amazon kindle juggernaut. Even I appreciated the customer service could look at the thing when I took my NC in for its flickery-at-low-brightness display. Of course both other units had the flicker so I kept it (fixed by CM7...thanks homebrew community).