Interesting Links for 11-03-2016

[nwhyte]

How Trump Could Be Blocked at a Contested Republican Convention Not pretty. Could it work? #fb
(tags: uspolitics ) The Paradox Of European Defence Strategy Talking the talk without walking the walk. #fb
(tags: eu ) Openness can pay off: the economic impact of migrants Actual facts. #fb
(tags: eu migration ) Mapped: The world's nuclear power plants

Comments

[autopope]

Note: author of B&N piece, while accurately describing how they've pissed off their customers, has no inkling of B&N/Nook's business at a business level. They're not a hardware company, they never invented any of their machines -- they just bought mostly off-the-shelf technology from OEMs and VARs and slapped a badge on it -- and the Nook subsidiary was hived off from B&N the bookstore chain some years ago. I'm guessing the withdrawal from non-US markets is driven by the complexity of the copyright licensing side of the publishing business in the wake of the end of the regulatory regime overseeing the Big Five's ebook publishing terms dictated by the DOJ Apple price-fixing prosecution (which Apple is now appealing before the US Supreme Court).

B&N is a bookstore chain. They're also circling the drain in a way that will be very familiar to Brits familiar with Waterstones, up until a couple of years ago when they hired James Daunt to turn the business around (which he did, rapidly, by turning Waterstones back into a book shop). I suspect B&N definitively getting out of the ebook business -- or at least cutting back -- may be an early stage in their new CEO trying to copy Waterstone's successful pivot ... or a further sign that things are going into a death spiral.

[ext_850482]

Will Barnes & Noble stop selling vintage vinyl, as well?