B&N's and Borders's New Sites

by Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2007

This month, BN.com received a major makeover and Borders released a test version of its new site (http://beta.bordersstores.com/online/store/Home). Here's a comparison of the sites' new offerings.

Barnes & Noble		Borders
Clean white with taupe and green accents.	Color scheme	Warm browns and tans.
Recommendations come from the staff.	Book recommendations	Recommendations are tailored to your tastes and past purchases.
You can put a book in your shopping cart with one click on the home page.	One-click shopping?	You must click through to a book's page in order to put a book in your shopping cart.
You can join online book clubs that feature the author's participation. The First Look Book Club allows readers to read ARCs of selected books; the current book is The Monsters of Templeton, a February 2008 release from Hyperion.	Book clubs	You can start your own group at Gather.com or go to a Borders store and join groups there. Watch videos of Borders Book Club, which debuted last September. The latest one, featuring a group talking with Elizabeth Gilbert, runs over an hour.
The “online literary magazine” Barnes & Noble Review feels like something you'd pick up in a bookstore. “See Inside” allows you to replicate the experience of flipping through a book. Only a small percentage of the books have the feature now, but the company expects to have it for every title eventually.	Like shopping in a store?	The Magic Shelf is a realistic-looking, 3-D shelf of book covers displayed as they would be in a Borders store. Some books we found have excerpts available, but Borders declined to say whether a search function would eventually be more fully implemented.
“Live at Barnes & Noble” shares webcasts of readings, discussions and interviews with authors and musicians, live from Barnes & Noble stores. Events are archived for later viewing.	Repurposing store events	Borders's “Live at 01” is filmed at Borders's first store in Ann Arbor, Mich. Recent programs have included Anne Lamott and Ishmael Beah, as well as singers and musicians. Events are archived for later viewing.
“One on One” podcasts hosted by public radio veteran Katherine Lanpher features conversations with writers, musicians and filmmakers.	Other media	“Borders Kitchen” shows interviews and cooking demonstrations; “Borders at the Movies” screens movie trailers and interviews with authors about their books being made into films.
The box on the home page that displays the most popular search terms lets you browse what's hot. One-click shopping from the home page is a big perk.	We like	It's easy to check if your local Borders store has a certain book in stock.
The “search” button on the home page is not immediately next to the field where you type in a search term, which slows things down.	We don't like	The Magic Shelf feels gimmicky, and having to scroll up and down to see shelves higher and lower is clunky.