Earlier this year Borders announced it was teaming up with Gather.com to develop an online community for book lovers.
My initial reaction to the story was not positive as Gathers.com is not a top tier social network and I thought that Borders could have picked a better partner.
So I read with interest a press release today about the partnership. The release included a long quote from Rob Gruen, executive vice president, Merchandising and Marketing for Borders:
“The Borders Book Club program will be a fun, interactive enhancement to our customers and shopping experience. It will enable readers of all ages and interests to connect with authors and with each other for lively discussions about books by providing guidance, advice, rich content and title recommendations online, in-store and in our communities. Through our relationship with Gather.com, we will be providing our customers with the unique opportunity to discuss a book with the author and have the one-on-one contact you do not often have the chance to experience.”
Nice words, so I went over the new Borders-Gathers web site and what was the first thing that I saw? A call-out box that said “Created Dec 27, 2006. Members: 1,135”.
So in 6 weeks this partnership has created only 1,135 members. For a company with 30 million customers, this cannot be viewed as a success by Borders. I like the concept of a book social network, I just think that Borders picked the wrong partner.
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J. Clifford 02.25.07 at 10:19 am
It’s true that Gathers is not a top niche social marketing site, but it does link in with the Borders target market much more than MySpace and YouTube do. Gathers wants to attract book readers, and needs to establish its brand in an arena that is not disrespected by readers, as MySpace and YouTube might be. Have some patience with this relationship. There’s a lot of potential, and some good growth in the mature social networking sector.