There’s lots of good reading at Christopher Butcher’s comics.212.net.
First, he links to a piece he wrote for ICv2 on the question as to whether the sky is falling on manga. He answers a lot of my questions about how retailers can (and, in my opinion, should) approach manga. As an added bonus, the piece prompts a response from a Barnes and Noble employee, giving me some additional insight. (Matt Maxwell at Highway 62 talked about the ICv2 article that prompted this discussion not too long ago.)
Christopher then asks some interesting questions about comics newsmagazine websites:
Who are they trying to reach with their material, and what are they doing to reach that audience? What is their focus? What are their columnists saying that isn’t being said, their reviewers reviewing that isn’t being reviewed? More importantly, how can we tell what’s noise and what’s static (without Kevin Melrose linking directly to it?).
Ed Cunard, of the Low Road and Comic World News, offers a response. Here’s part of it:
It’s just a matter of constant refocusing and self-examination to get a site to its potential, and that seems to be the thing that plagues most sites. It’s too much about personal feelings and individual goals, and not about just making a nice little corner on the web.
I hope contributors to other sites offer their views, too.