Journey chat: Ralph Vacchiano

How news and sports are reported has changed by leaps and bounds. I’m old enough to remember when I relied on the newspaper to get updates on my favorite teams. ESPN and CNN changed the way sports and news were covered, respectively.

Fast forward to 2012 and if you want to get scores, highlights, stats, or breaking news, you can get in on your phone. Ralph Vacchiano knows all about the evolution of sports reporting. He’s living it.

Vacchiano is the New York Giants beat writer for the New York Daily News. He’s also the author of the book, “Eli Manning: The Making of a Quarterback,” which is available at Amazon. It’s also available at Barnes & Noble, with an update for the Giants Super Bowl run.

Here’s my interview with Ralph, where we discuss sports journalism, covering a Super Bowl champion, and social media.

No surprise on Borders

Janine Melnitz: You’re very handy, I can tell. I bet you like to read a lot, too. 
Dr. Egon Spengler: Print is dead.

-Ghostbusters, 1984

By now, you have heard that the nation’s second-largest retail book chain is shutting its doors. Borders was already bankrupt, but was hoping for a reprieve. It didn’t come.

In some ways, this story has been one long in the making. Borders failed to evolve with the times. The stores were big (bigger than Barnes and Noble in most cases) and were getting cut by Walmart and Amazon. The later two discounted books, while Borders sat idly by.

The biggest non-move was Borders slow-to-the-jump effort into the tablet market. Think about it. While Barnes and Noble unleashed the Nook in 2009 and Amazon offered up the Kindle in 2007, Borders partnered with e-reader maker Kobo in 2010.  According to VentureBeat.com, Kindle estimates from 2010 projected that the company sold more than 8 million units in 2010.  Amazon also said late last year that it held around 70 percent of the e-book market, while Barnes and Noble said the Nook had 20 percent of the e-book market late in 2010. That leaves only 10 percent for other e-readers, like Kobo.

The bottom line is that, with any business, you need to adapt. You can’t settle on early success because there is always someone waiting to overtake you. In this case, Borders was passed by the brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble, and Amazon’s ability to offer more for less online.

What are your thoughts on Borders closing? Let me know in the comments.