Does this mean bricks and clicks can NEVER be joined?

Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble and other major retail "bricks" stores have tried repeatedly and as this NYT article reports, generally failed to beat their online-only rivals -- Netflix and Amazon, respectively.

Does this mean all bricks retailer efforts to build business online are doomed?

No, of course not, but...it does mean you have to commit to a host of changes in how you do business. All your business. What changes, exactly? I knew you were going to ask that! Good question! Next...

Okay, here are some starting points:
1. Accept that there is a new world. Begin to grapple with the implications: pricing, new definitions and ways of achieving trust, customer power, level of customer service, best practices defined not by your old competitors, but globally, online.
2. New business model, often not compatible with your well-established one.
3. Probability of losses or low profits for a while -- painful when you have an established, profitable business that you're cannibalizing...for this?
4. New metrics of success -- with the right ones hidden in a flood of new metrics, not all of them relevant.
5. Faster pace: products, customer service, changes to plan needed.

Other issues you see?

Advertising IS (local) news -- if done right

Gordon Borrell, one of the wise men (I deliberately omit "old") of media new and old, points out that a century-old saying is just as, if not even truer in our mobile, drive-by news world. And wouldn't you know it, one of the supposed dying icons of print advertising, Yellowbook, is trying a quick follow of the leader Groupon, with weforia.com. Can't help myself: when do you think newspapers will figure out that this might work?

Borrell Associates, Inc: Local Interactive & Online Advertising Research and Consulting