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Borders.com | Soon To Be Amazon-free

Borders is cutting the cord from Amazon in February.

I think this will be a good move for Borders, the No. 2 U.S. bookseller behind Barnes & Noble. The most impressive feature and service I see on the new website (which is in beta) is the ability to check to see if an item online is in stock at a local store and also be able to reserve the item online for pickup if it is. Of course this was/is an important feature because at this point you cannot yet purchase any items on the beta site.

Assuming they keep this feature as an option to its customers, I think it is a great value add and distinguisher for them from their competitors. Borders is of course hoping the customer makes additional purchases at pick up.

Read more: Borders to break free of Amazon | CNET News.com.

A Call to Action - Save Business 2.0 Magazine - Join the Facebook Group

A campaign has begun to save the magazine, Business 2.0. Time, Inc. puts out Business 2.0, but understandably is concerned with declining ad pages and has threatened to stop publishing the magazine in September. Well, purported "avid" readers of the magazine have started a Facebook group in attempts to pull off a "Jericho" and I am jumping on the bandwagon.

I am a subscriber and fan of Business 2.0. Over the last 6 months I have narrowed my magazine subscriptions list down to only the most useful (in my opinion) sources, and Business 2.0 was among the top of my list to renew.

If you have not had an opportunity to read Business 2.0, please do so (and I would do it as soon as possible). If you find the value in the magazine that I have, join the Facebook group - which includes some prominent people in technology, business and media (Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Matt Cohler, VP-strategy at Facebook; Ned Desmond, president of Time Inc. Interactive; Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch; Philip Kaplan, founder and chairman of AdBrite online ad agency; Om Malik, creator of tech blog GigaOm; Blaise Zerega, managing editor of Portfolio.com and former managing editor of Wired; James Ledbetter, former European editor of The Industry Standard; Sree Sreenivasan of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; and Jimmy Guterman, editor of O'Reilly Media's Release 2.0 and former editor in chief of Forrester, Gaming Industry News and CD Review).