Jeff Jarvis, media commentator and apologist for Web 2.0 and all things new and shiny, asks his readers to forgive him for publishing his forthcoming love letter to Google in an old media format -- a book (gasp). He quotes a few "graphs" from the end of the book:
I confess: I’m a hypocrite. If I had followed my own rules – if I had eaten my own dogfood – you wouldn’t be reading this book right now, at least not as a book. You’d be reading it online, for free. You’d have discovered it via links and search. You’d be entering into a conversation around any point in the book. You’d be able to correct me and I’d be able to update the book with the latest amazing stats from Google. This would be even more of a collaboration than it already is. We might form a society of Googlethinkers on Facebook and you’d offer better advice and newer ways to look at the world than I have been able to. I might make money from speaking and consulting instead of a publisher’s advance.
But instead, I made money from a publisher’s advance. That is why you are reading this as a book. Sorry. Dog’s gotta eat.
And the truth is, I already do most everything I describe above – on my blog. I believe the two forms may come together eventually. But in the meantime, I’m no fool; I couldn’t pass up a nice check from Collins, my publisher, and all sorts of services from Harper-Collins, its parent, including editing, design, publicity, sales, a speaker’s bureau, and online help. That’s why publishing is still publishing. The question is, how long can it stay that way?
I say not so fast. If cheerleaders like Jarvis really believe print is dead and that we all need to get in line with the "new business models" then they should be the first to try it. We're no fools either.
Link: Apologizing for the book (warning: not exactly work safe now that Jarvis is running American Apparel ads)
The term "Googlethinkers" made me shudder involuntarily. I realizer our minds are all irreparably colonized by brands, but still. Is that any different than "Pepsithinker" or "Raytheonthinker"?
Posted by: Davin | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 08:56 AM
That's kind of funny. When the cheerleaders for change can't manage to make the change themselves, what does that say?
Is it that the technology is ready and raring to go, but society and/or the business end of things isn't ready to make the necessary changes?
Posted by: Mark | Saturday, August 02, 2008 at 09:58 AM