July 2009
18 posts
And... Doctorow on 'Free'
Cory Doctorow weighs in on Free.
Bits of note:
I think [Free] has exactly the same problem as The Long Tail, namely, an unwillingness to consider the wider implications of a world centred on a commodity that can be infinitely reproduced at no marginal cost.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Anderson’s dismissal of the Free Software Foundation founder, Richard Stallman, the...
Absurd: Google wants to make 'editorial decisions'
I’ve been cautiously optimistic about the Google Book Search Settlement. There are a few things to iron out — and I still haven’t wrapped my head around the implications of Google having access to a goose that lays golden eggs (i.e., making money from orphaned out-of-print-but-in-copyright books) — but on the whole, I think it’s dangerously exciting.
But that was...
Publishers talk to Apple about Kindle killer
The Financial Times says Apple “is racing to offer a portable tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution.” Somewhat surprisingly, book publishers are getting in on the ground floor:
Book publishers have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about being included in the computer, which could...
Unpublished Vonnegut coming soon
Random House imprint Delacorte Press will bring out 14 unpublished short stories by Kurt Vonnegut — each in e-book form. From ArtsBeat:
In a news release, the publisher said that the first story, “Hello Red,” would be available as an e-book on Aug. 25, and a second, “The Petrified Ants,” would be released on Sept. 29; the rest would be available on Oct. 20.
Do we need a new word for reading on screen?
Bill Hill at The Future of Reading doesn’t think we need a new word for reading on screen. I happen to agree, but I think the question itself is somewhat benign.
If reading on screen and reading on paper are different, then they should be distinguished as such. It would be confusing to have any kind of meaningful discussion about their differences if we can’t talk about them as...
Rock and roll, Amazon. Perfectly legal, absolutely stupid.
Meanwhile in TV land: "The Bachelor" contract
The 22-page contestant contract for The Bachelor has found its way onto the wires. It might be old, but I just found it today. It’s quite long and mostly dull (just like the show… zing!), but there are some interesting/horrid little passages in there.
Take, for instance, the ‘Dates’, of which you are ‘required’ to go on:
I understand that all Dates may be...
"To write is human, to edit is divine"
That’s an excellent quote from Stephen King, illustrating how an editor can make good copy truly sing.
But a more mundane job that editors do is, according to the Washington Post, reduce the number of errors:
Between early 2005 and mid-2008, the number of full-time copy editors dropped from about 75 to 43 through buyouts or voluntary departures. It has declined further since then, but...
NYT digs into Anderson's 'Free'
I don’t intend to chronicle the myriad fors and againsts relating to Anderson’s Free, but the NYT’s Janet Maslin has added something extra to the debate. She takes a critical look at Anderson’s book alongside Ellen Ruppel Shell’s Cheap, in relation to discounted Hershey Kisses.
Maslin isn’t brutal about it, but she’s certainly not flattering. She describes...
June 2009
2 posts
Godin and Anderson on Gladwell on Anderson on...
Unsurprisingly, Malcolm Gladwell’s take on Chris Anderson’s ‘Free’ didn’t go unnoticed. First, Anderson tapped out an angry rebuttal, ‘Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened?’, over at The Long Tail:
But since journalist Malcolm Gladwell has somewhat parochially decided to make the Future of Paid Journalism the focus of his review of Free (which is,...