Here's a jacket-cover image for my soon-to-arrive book, We the
Media. The designers did a great job.
We're starting to build a website to accompany the book. My goal is to
have something as lively and useful as Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs site. I'll tell you
more as the publication date gets closer.
I'll be giving a talk about my upcoming book,
We,
the Media, in Silicon Valley on May 20. It's part of the
SDForum's speaker series, and will be at the Computer History Museum
in Mountain View.
Details here.
Asahi on 'We the Media'
Asahi on 'We the Media'08/20/2004 05:54 PM Asahi, the giant Japanese media company, recently interviewed me about
the book. Results are here, for
those of you who can read the language.
More 'We the Media' Remixes
More 'We the Media' Remixes08/09/2004 07:57 AM The remixing of the book is taking interesting new forms, all
permitted because it's published under a kind of Creative
Commons license permitting non-commercial use, so long as the work
is credited and is made available under the same license. Examples of
the remixes:
'We the Media' Q&A in Wired news08/11/2004 11:50 AM Wired News' Xeni Jardin had a bunch of questions for me about the book, and I did my best
to respond. You can find the Q&A here.
'We the Media' Blog in Beta
'We the Media' Blog in Beta07/20/2004 01:16 PM Oops, we forgot to turn off the pinging of weblog-alert sites when we
put up what amounts to a beta version of the "We the Media" website. Joi
Ito spotted it and b
logged it.
As Joi just noted in an IM, it seemed "very appropriate for the book."
How true...
Russia 'impeded media' in Beslan09/16/2004 07:43 AM The OSCE condemns Russia's handling of the media during the bloody
Beslan school siege.
Prince 'should work with media'
Prince 'should work with media'04/01/2005 04:53 AM Prince Charles' handling of the press should involve more "give and
take", publicist Max Clifford says.
A final reminder that I'll be giving a talk tonight about "We the
Media" -- the title of my upcoming
book. It'll be at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Details here.
Book Publishers Selling Direct - Pissing Off Book Retailers
Book Publishers Selling Direct - Pissing Off Book Retailers02/13/2004 05:52 AM One of the struggles that companies have as distribution and sales
mechanisms change is handling legacy channel conflict issues. Dell
became huge by selling direct to customers, but when rival Compaq
started to move in that direction, their retail partners freaked out -
and Compaq had to scale back their plans. It appears that book
publishers are now going through the same process. They've realized
that if someone is looking for info about certain books on their site,
it makes sense to also offer them a chance to buy it. However, it's
pissing off retailers, who don't
want to hear that their suppliers are competing with them. Retailers
say a reasonable compromise would be having the publishers point to
the retailers, which was my first response as well. However, then it
becomes a political situation of who do you link to and why? There's
also the fact that this makes for a less enjoyable consumer
experience. I know that, more than once, I've been annoyed at online
sites where I go for info on buying a product, but when I try to buy
am given a big list of retailers instead of a way to buy right away.
Repeat After Me: A Book is a Book07/13/2004 03:49 PM This NY
Times piece compares Amazon.com with Napster. Huh?
The odd logic is that used books sold online are cutting into sales of
new books, which may or may not be true. But the Napster comparison is
ludicrous for some obvious reasons, including the fact that an actual
book is not a digitized song, and that if I'm holding a specific book
you are not holding the same copy.
The Times piece is about the "doctrine of first sale," which basically
says that once a work is sold, it's gone from the creator's control.
The purchaser of the item can resell it, give it away or throw it in
the garbage, if that's what he wants to do.
Copyright holders have never liked this very much, and I can
sympathize. Visual artists who see escalating prices for works they
sold at bargain when they were starting out tend to really not like
this situation. But the doctrine of first sale is vastly better than
the alternative.
The idea that the copyright owner should get a cut every time a book
changes hands is a Pandora's box. It's also just what copyright
industry would like to see happen, and that's what the entertainment
industry is trying to create with its various digital restrictions
technologies.
The industry wants a pay-per-use world of arts and letters. Resist.
And let's please not equate selling a used book with copyright
infringement.
My Cover CD for iTunes 1.607/16/2004 06:31 PM AppleScript Studio application for creation of CD jewel case inserts
from a selection of songs in iTunes.
DVD Cover Print v1.3.012/04/2003 09:38 PM DVD Cover Print is DVD Cover Art Printing software that allows you to
print your DVD keep case covers in no time and with precision and
precise control. DVD cover art printing has never been so simple or
accurate. DVD Cover Print gives you the ability to print DVD Cover
Art to exact specifications. Use our defaults, or change them to fit
your needs. [Shareware $8.00 30 Days 4 MB]
The bl0gging cover-up07/02/2004 06:39 AM CNET News.com's Charles Cooper explains why the upcoming political
conventions are setting themselves up for embarrassment.
Cover Comes Off G5 iMac09/16/2004 08:37 PM A drooling audience of over 900 Macintosh devotees and probably a few
new converts was last week treated to the first glimpse in New Zealand
of Apple's new iMac G5. By Louis van Wyk, New Zealand Reseller News
(via MyAppleMenu)
CD and DVD cover-art archive04/13/2004 03:44 PM Damien sez, "these incredible guys have created an online archive of
the front and back cover art of almost every compact disc album and
DVD release ever, freely downloadable as a jpeg. of course, the linear
shelf space of any decent DVD movie collection is enormous if actually
stored in those over-sized black plastic boxes..."
Link
(Thanks, Damien!)
Here's a jacket-cover image for my soon-to-arrive book,