What If Amazon Bought Borders?...

Be honest. Isn't that a question you've asked yourself a time or two over the past several months? I read this New York magazine article again last night and when I hit this part I wondered about it all over again:

Recently William Ackerman, a major Borders shareholder, suggested they should sell to Amazon instead (of B&N). That probably won't happen, but his reasoning is clear. Barnes & Noble is old news. Amazon is the future.

So humor me for a moment while I speculate about what a Bordazon world might look like...

First of all, finally, we'd see Kindles in a brick-and-mortar outlet. Hooray! I tend to think the lack of Kindles in physical stores has been one of the device's biggest adoption obstacles. That and the $350 price tag.

Next, do you want to see some technology in a brick-and-mortar store? Amazon would probably have tech kiosks on every endcap, enabling you to order all sorts of (book and non-book) products right there, on the spot. They'd probably also figure out how to turn the store into even more of a trendy hangout joint. Think Starbucks meets the Apple Store.

This would also be an excellent opportunity to (finally!) tear down the wall between online and physical stores. How about offering the same discounts online and in the store? You want three books and two are in the store but one isn't? No problem. We'll get the third one to you tomorrow, not when our distributor can get it to us sometime next week! You're ordering a book online? We'll check your zipcode to see if that title is at your local store for immediate pickup -- why wait till tomorrow when you can get it today?

OK, I know the chance of these things actually happening is pretty slim. Sure, the brick-and-mortars have all that extra overhead to deal with but hey, I can dream, can't I?

Although I like Joe's entry and agree with a lot of his points, I'm not sure whether Amazon buying Borders would be a good or a bad thing. Amazon has been such a bully of late, that I'm not really a fan of theirs anymore. But perhaps if they bought Borders and therefore had a brick-and-mortar presence, they'd have to deal with the issues that B&N and other bookstores have to deal with, and would therefore become more reasonable. One can only hope...

And speaking of B&N, have you checked out the new "My B&N" feature? Amazon has been more of an interacitve social network all along, so it's about time B&N caught up. They've actually taken their version a step further and incorporated many of the features you see on sites like goodreads.com. But will this get people to buy more books, and buy them on B&N?

What do you think?