HMV - Stuck in the Middle

"Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right" could be the motto for the British High Street right now as one after another retail business hurtles towards bankruptcy.

When the economy squeezes, the middle ground is not a pleasant place to be. HMV and Blockbuster (admit it, you too were surprised they were still in business), the most recent casualties, both made the fatal error of being neither streamlined enough to compete with their internet competition on efficiency, nor service-oriented enough to compete with small, independent specialist stores occupying less expensive real estate.

It's not all bad news though, perhaps the demise of another stack-em-high music retailer (see Tower, Virgin et al) will leave more room for the independent record store to flourish. If you're at all interested in this kind of thing you could do much worse than collaborate on making this map of independent record stores a comprehensive and well-known resource.