Took a bit of a break this afternoon and watched Linotype: The Film. Really great documentary about what was, for many years, revolutionary publishing technology. It’s a little crazy to realize that the gap between idea and mass publication used to literally require liquid metal poured one line at a time.
Tag: publishing
Status
Earlier today I started Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. I’m already half-way through reading it. A fantastic read with the right mix of tech, books, and intrigue.
Mid-week reading list
With the craziness of running a WordCamp last week I didn’t have much time to read through my Instapaper queue. Thankfully, I had some extra time to catch up on things tonight. Interestingly I had a lot of articles that hit on similar themes. Last week seemed to be the week to publish pieces about publishing.
Scott Hanselman’s Your words are wasted was first up. It speaks to my belief in the importance of open source software and owning what you publish. As he says, “I control this domain, this software and this content.”
It’s been a while since I’ve read something from the Nieman Lab but I think I need to start following them more closely again. 13 ways of looking at Medium was well done. They save the critical questions for the end and there could have been more of those, but it’s an interesting look at Ev Williams’ new publishing tool.
The Dangers of Being a Product Instead of a Customer was another good post. As Diego writes there, “I’d much rather be a customer of web services than a product.”
Anil Dash’s musing on streams was interesting as a somewhat higher level piece. People do read on the internet, they just require content to be presented in the right way.
Interesting stuff going on.
But tools can only go so far. In the end, it comes down the writer. In writing, the friction that has to be dealt with the most is that which takes place in your head. Not from your tools. A good writer can change thoughts, opinions and even worlds, regardless of the tool or platform used.
I strongly believe digital books benefit from public endpoints. The current generation of readers (human, not electronic) have formed expectations about sharing text, and if you obstruct their ability to share — to touch — digital text, then your content is as good as non-existent. Or, in the least, it’s less likely to be engaged.
Word. Art Space Tokyo is a gorgeous site and I bet will drive a lot of digital sales, in addition to readers.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, while attending this weekend’s WordCamp:
Blogging is beautiful, it elevates the human spirit and enriches public life…I remember discovering how easy it was to blog, not so many years ago, and I really hope that lots of people are still discovering how easy and how rewarding it is every day today.
Interest, effects, agency. These are three ways that a story might intersect with you, and they are reasons you might need to see it.
Great article from Jonathan Stray. I’d pay for a news organization that approached its product from these three principles.
What is a Public Editor? I’m curious which news organization will be the first to implement this because eventually one will.
My Gettysburg oration: A vision for journalism that can long endure:
But let’s be honest: Most of the content we publish isn’t stories. It’s news. It’s facts. It’s information. Let’s respect the pure, traditional story – the narrative string of paragraphs – by reserving that form for real stories that have story elements such as plot, character, setting and theme.
This whole speech is phenomenal.
How Jonah Lehrer should blog
The problem with Jonah Lehrer, like the problem with Zach Kouwe, is not that he was humbled by the insatiable demands of Blog. Instead, it’s that he made a category error, and tried to use a regular blog as a vehicle for the kind of writing that should not be done in blog format. Lehrer shouldn’t shut down Frontal Cortex; he should simply change it to become a real blog. And if he does that, he’s likely to find that blogs in fact are wonderful tools for generating ideas, rather than being places where your precious store of ideas gets used up in record-quick time.
Felix Salmon – How Jonah Lehrer should blog.