As US bookseller Barnes and Noble shrinks its store network, Mark Athitakis has a tribute to the once ubiquitous chain in The New Republic.
Barnes and Noble was never popular among US independent booksellers because of the perception, probably true, that the chain drove locally owned stores out of business.
What it offered though was a safe, comfortable place for booklovers to gather in suburban shopping malls. As Mark points out, it created a community.
Its stores were designed to keep people parked for a while, for children’s story time, for coffee klatches, for sitting around and browsing. That was a business decision—more time spent in the store, more money spent when you left it—but it had a cultural effect. It brought literary culture to pockets of the country that lacked them.
In recent years that community moved to coffee shops, in the United States B&N’s role was taken by Starbucks, at the same time our reading habits changed and the business of selling books and magazines became tougher.
Now that community is changing again, as the online societies like blogs, Facebook and Twitter become important, the coffee shops have responded with free wi-fi which is a perfect example of how the online and offline world come together.
That need to create communities, either physically or online, is a driving human urge.
Online that role is being catered to with social media platforms and sites like food, mommy or tech blogs where like minded people can gather.
Down at the mall, Barnes and Noble catered for that need in the 1980s and Starbucks in the 1990s. What will follow them may be the next big success in the retail or hospitality industry.
Image courtesy of Brenda76 on SXC
B&N, Border-case studies at business & tech schools. What if I did say that social networks these days are not just used for communicating with people? Some people still think that they are.
Technologies are shifting industries, business models and lifestyles, well, few of them are here:
What would any 1 have to say for all these below including potential of Facebook/FB and other social networks/media, apps world, cloud computing, gestural tech, 3D printing and so on? Things are changing due to tech including IT including social media/networks, apps worlds, cloud computing and so on which are shifting business models, industries and lifestyles. Trade shows themselves have virtual reality. Then, look at blended learning – http://www.knewton.com/blended-learning/ (50% of high school would have online learning in US by 2019)(that link has the 6 basic types of blended learning where the last 2 types are mostly online). Then, self service revolution which came about a century or 2 ago from US to UK and then the rest which includes ATMs. Also, look at virtual offices (the legal, admin and other professions are changing around the globe not just due to globalization, balance of work and life but also due to tech including virtual offices where physical locations/offices aren’t needed).The yuan maybe challenging the us dollar but even the currency is shifting slowly more towards tech as nowadays can use even mobiles to pay for goods. There’s also the electronic cards as well as virtual currency (virtual currencies are mostly used within online world though if i’m right, FB has also used to for real physical products). Then, there is also 3D printing, gestural technologies also used at trade shows and so on. Most of these technologies have already changed industries – retail, entertainment including publishing and music worlds, manufacturing and so on. US has been involved in the high end manufacturing in the last 20 years or so which can be seen under http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/episode/4/. Robotics has taken over jobs & the skill-sets have shifted. Less human labour now for any industry as can be seen under previous video. Journalism & public speaking also face same issues as Amazon, Apple, etc provide publishing tools while Twitter is a real-time social news network. Facebook has pages as well as the Spotify, Soundcloud,Docs & other apps. It’s immersed itself into entertainment world & more. Docs app is MS’ answer to Google Docs (cloud computing) & Docs app involves MS’ PDF version as PDF has different versions & is a standard. Facebook also has its blogging section called Facebook Notes though not as developed as WordPress. So, what can Facebook be? Well, the central library/resource/knowledge platform including for entertainment & more. Twitter, on the other hand real-time news social network & it depends on 3rd party blogging platforms for links or articles on its site. These days, social networks, search, cloud computing, apps, 3D printing, etc are not stand-alones. For example, there are real-time integrated search apps used for search content via social networks and other apps. Kurrently, for example is a real-time integrated public search app that searches content from various social networks like Facebook,LinkedIN,Twitter,etc while Cue,Greplin & Kitedesk are private real-time search app that does it for GMail, the above 3 social networks,Salesforce and more & Kitedesk can even share & manage documents. There are other such apps that integrates various technologies.
Google searches are done according to its algorithm. Facebook can be used as an information and communications centre as Facebook has Skype, Spotify, Soundcloud (music apps), other apps including Docs app (MS Docs’ reply to Google Docs – cloud computing) while Cue/Greplin and Kitedesk are the right tools for searching not only within FB but also within other apps as mentioned above. Under FB, can choose the pages that the individual loves and not depend on Google’s algorithm (because each individual’s taste including for search differs).
If use right settings and apps including lists which the firm has provided in the last 10 months or so, FB’s potential can be used efficiently; pages, contacts and apps wouldn’t get so cluttered and also posts/ads/comments can be done for free (mostly).
The dying and thriving careers in next 10 years or so in US, Australia and rest of the world can be found under http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/13/opinion/careers-tomorrow-townsend/index.html (Dying careers and thriving careers: the jobs of tomorrow) and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/occupations-in-decline_n_1250058.html (10 Careers that are dying out). Traditional retail, manufacturing assembly jobs, postal service workers, office and administrative workers, telemarketing and door-to-door sales are some of the dying careers.
Customer centric approach alone finished in 1980s and Innovative approach took over then. IBM, P&G were the early innovators and then pushed by Google, Amazon, Apple, Salesforce and so on including Facebook.”