Francis X. Clines, New York Times:

We all may have thought that product delivery by drone was the next big Amazon thing. But the future turns out to be a typical retail store in the Time Warner Center off Columbus Circle. Another half dozen are due this year, including a second Manhattan store, on 34th Street.

The speculation is that dozens more are planned nationally and that Amazon, which already handles nearly half of the nation’s book sales, may eventually expand into selling far more products than the books and Kindle electronics the stores currently offer.

And:

Ask a worker about the narrow predictability of data mining, and the reply comes: “It’s data with heart.” Amazon says its recommendations include in-house “curators’ assessments” to add a variable touch to the crowdsourcing.

This seems the future of the brick and mortar, slowly crushing the mom and pops under a massive pile of data.