Can I buy the game online?

There are many, many online stores that sell video games, and I'm sure most of them will have Skyrim.
Of course you will be able to.... is this even a real question

I think they mean from a download distribution store.

I believe you're refering to a digital download? I'd say yes!

You can buy it directly from steam.
Better usually you can download it on 11.09.11 or 11.10.11 and it goes active 11.10.11 23:59.59
One thing I wonder about if I buy the dvd and break it, can I download it from steam for free?
You has to activate it and if you buy it at steam you can download again many times.

Yes I was talking about digital distribution.

Yup steam will sell this game.

Yes, you will be able to buy it from steam. Steam makes it a little more annoying to mod the game but it's there if you wish to buy it.

This is true and wrong. Most likely on Steam, you will be able to buy it from thier and download it early, BUT it will not be
activated untill 10:00am or like what happened on other games, just after 10:20am even though they said 10:00am. Then
you will most likely download a 2gig patch and then after all is said and done, then be able to play the game.

Yup. Used to hate steam, but I almost exclusively use it now, and anyway old titles which I bought retail but were on steam came on discs which I still have but never ever use. Basically the games are added to your steam library and you can download them on any computer (non-Mac), with no disc needed.

Some games you can download on mac as well. Which is nice as you only need to purchase one game and you have both the PC and Mac version.