Interesting Links for 08-02-2013

[andrewducker]

• Science Museum, Natural History Museum and Wikimedia UK to jointly appoint Wikimedian in Residence
  (tags: uk museums wikipedia )
• HMV announces 66 store closures (including all five in Edinburgh)
  (tags: hmv edinburgh )
• 20% of music fans now buy only in digital format
  (tags: music uk technology )
• People talk about boyfriends more than girlfriends,

Comments

[gonzo21]

I am amazed that big HMV on princes street wasn't profitable. But I guess that may be the end result of all of these years of tram line disruption.

[andrewducker]

There's no tram line disruption to Princes Street at the moment. Any problems it has are down to the same ones HMV has everywhere, and Princes Street having very high rents compared to, say, Aberdeen.

[gonzo21]

Cumulative effect from past disruption? I read something a while back that was saying shops down Princes St. and down the hill to the water had taken a big hit to their turn-overs thanks to the tram disruption and customers going elsewhere.

Certainly I have friends who used to own a furniture shop down near Leith who struggled after the first year of trams, and then had to close the second year.

[andrewducker]

Oh, there are bound to be affects. But if customers were going elsewhere then it would have made sense to close, say, three HMVs in Edinburgh and see if that caused footfall to increase at the other two.

[danieldwilliam]

I’m surprised that all of the HMV shops in Edinburgh are closing. I would have thought that amalgamating the five shops into two or one would have been enough.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I'd think that they'd at least try shutting down a couple first.

[danieldwilliam]

I guess they know their business best but if you can’t make a record shop profitably in Edinburgh then you have serious problems.

I wonder where my nearerst HMV is now?

[andrewducker]

Livingstone, I think.

[andrewducker]

And I've just remembered that HMV bought FOPP out in 2007. So they're probably going too!

[danieldwilliam]

I can’t see any useful discussion of FOPP on t’internet. A few people authoratatively guessing that FOPP is doomed or will launch a management buy-out.

[gonzo21]

It will however be very good news indeed for whatever small indie record shops are left in Edinburgh I should think.

[danieldwilliam]

Indeed.

As the superlative business commentator of his age, Harry Enfield might have remarked.

Loadsamonay

[andrewducker]

The only one of any size I could think of was FOPP, and that's owned by HMV, so will presumably die off too!

[0olong]

Avalanche Records and Ripping Records aren't THAT small!

[gonzo21]

Ah, maybe that's the store they'll be keeping open then, so there is sort of still one HMV chain shop left in the big E.

I'm amazed they're closing the princes St one, my memory of the place is that it is huge, heaven knows who they'll find to take it over.

[danieldwilliam]

Well I think we’re back to conversations passim about the future of the high street once Amazon has disintermediated all the retailers it can.

Specifically, yeah, who is there that would like a very large shop on Princes Street right at the moment? I don’t think it is quite the largest shop that isn’t a department store (I think the bigger H&M is bigger) but it would be in with a shout of being the biggest.

Perhaps a total rededication to become a hotel?