Borders is back in the e-commerce business. That's fine; I'm sure I'm not the only person who would welcome an alternative to the always-dreadful Amazon interface. Not that I'd give up Amazon -- I'm not suggesting that for a second. The combination of deep familiarity, rich community knowledge, and tremendous execution is simply unbeatable.

But the Borders look-and-feel, which is designed to simulate store browsing, is attractive. And somehow, the books "selected" for me (though Borders has not mined any information about me that I'm aware of) were uncannily apt on my first visit. But what's this? Jill Taylor's "Stroke of Insight" won't ship for 2-4 weeks?! Amazon measures the delivery time in hours, urging me to bang in my order pronto.

And that isn't even the long-term problem for Borders. The real competition is Kindle. I can start reading that book in minutes, at less than half price.

Beautiful site, Borders. Funny how irrelevance can be so pretty.