What if the only reason Barnes & Noble didn't make it is because their brand name isn't SEO-friendly. 50% of the time I visit Barnes & Noble's website—which is about once a quarter—I misspell the domain name. Then I Google for it. By the time I get there, I'm frustrated. Already, my user experience is not off to a good start.
Even when I typed up a draft of this post, I misspelled the name. Is there an "s" after the "e"? I always forget!
I want to suggest that this has had somewhere between a 10-35% dampening effect on any Internet success that Barnes & Noble has tried to claim. Multiplied over a decade-plus, and that has lead to an exponential failure.
