18/01/08

Books still do influence people. Look at Blink, Wisdom of Crowds and Whole New Mind. I’m reading Clinton Wars – much too dense for the web.

I still buy 10-20 books a year – not all read.

The web is good for fast subjects and there is nothing better than a clever turn of phrase.

I agree that video blogging – if you’re reasonably handsome/pretty and have a good voice is more effective. However, it’s time consuming. Editing words is faster than editing video.

Go for it.

18/01/08

Well I suppose it’s no surprise that I’m a bookworm too, with you as a Dad. I remember reading your business books as a kid, such a great education. I just fear that we’re part of a smaller minority than I previously estimated, and a shrinking one at that.

I’m not pretty and my voice is nasal, but I do love making video…

18/01/08

Yeah – the “word” is far, far from dead – I don’t think the notion of books is anywhere near death, but it’s certainly going to have to adapt.

I read more now then I probably ever have at any time in my life – I just consume it through blog posts & web pages now instead of printed alternatives.

I have several video blogs in my reader etc. but the truth is I rarely watch them. a) people tend to ramble on video and b) I can’t skim your video which means it takes me much, much longer to consume your content.

It’s also much harder to digest. I written form I can skim up and down really easily (i.e. something you write later on twigs me on to something you mentioned higher up and I want to go back and read). Not as easy with video. Especially not with current Flash players.

Words != video

One does not have to mean the end of the other – they each have their place and uses.

18/01/08

Switching to video to stay ahead of the curve will sadly leave some of us behind and out of touch, through no fault of our own. As more and more people cater to those with high speed access, those of us without (though we are 15 minutes from our provincial capital, though it was promised Island wide years ago, though we’ve been actively pursuing it since children, now employed in far away cities in fancy IT jobs after post secondary education were mere high school students here at home) lose more and more access to the internet. There is no “streaming” audio or video on dialup and it takes roughly 1 hour to load every minute of a YouTube video. Sometimes I make the effort. Rarely.

18/01/08

Will,

Please don’t to that – don’t vodcast your opinions/blog posts. Your audience does read. In fact more content is written down now and read now than at any other time in history.

Steve Jobs has misled the press for his own purposes:
1. We will not have video on iPods. It doesn’t make sense.
2. We are not going to create an phone.

People are buying less standard BOOKS, yes. People are also buying less CDs. Neither implies over all consumptions habits of written word or music. Text is still king on the Web.

Also, I can read way way faster than you can talk. So unless you are going to SHOW me something, please do not do a vodcast.

I wrote some opinions on this very thing recently:
http://www.davidrdgratton.com/blog/pointless-video-blogging-lazy-bloggers-or-vanity

18/01/08

I disagree that the printed word will go away and everyone will focus on video. I like video and it has it’s place. But when it comes to news and information, I tend to prefer the written forms. That can be in newspapers (I still skim them anyway) or blogs or news web sites. Society moves so fast that many of us just skim articles to get the general idea. If we’re really interested, we’ll read the entire article or view the video.

I could never see the day when I would get all my news in a video download, even if it was automatically compiled of stories that might interest me. I’d still want to skim and you can’t do that with video.

Don’t put down that pen, er … keyboard!

18/01/08

Don’t let rejections put you off the publishing route. Publishers can be complete idiots. I know a number of authors who were rejected for years only for their works to hit the top of the charts when they finally see the light of day. Dave Gemmell used to read from selected rejection letters when he toured. For someone who went on to became the UK’s number one fantasy writer he didn’t do so bad for himself in the end.

Stick at it bud.

All the best,

George

20/01/08

I don’t think the written word will die. It is the cornerstone of civilization. What will change, perhaps, is what the notion of a “book” is. Blogs have gone a long way towards this. A book does not need to mean a collection of printed paper pages…it can be electronic.

What will also change is the publishing industry. We’ll see a shift away from large publishing houses that print thousands, if not millions, of copies to a more “print on demand” model. You’ll also see the more democratized model of self-publishing grow.

The decrease in book sales does not mean the end of the written word any more than declining CD sales means the end of music.

More could also be said about global demographics and the market for printed material worldwide, as well as generation gaps and their adoption of technology, and the fact that some people just prefer the feel of a real book…but this comment is already too long.

20/01/08

Choosing the medium chooses the audience. Perhaps people at large do not read books, but I doubt you’re trying to communicate with people at large.

Selecting e-books over traditional dead trees is selecting even further. I think it’s ridiculous to suppose something like the Kindle isn’t the future. Steve is bashing it because he wants to design a slicker product just like it, and he doesn’t want the Kindle gaining traction.

I’m reading your blog, aren’t I? We have to stay connected to each other. Reading is how we do that, and will for a long time to come yet, I think.

21/01/08

Steve Jobs is maybe the best at making nice electronic entertainment devices and thus what he said on ebooks should have some value (Yet, does Amazon website claims that their Kindle is sold out). But Steve jobs may be wrong sometimes, especially concerning the book industry.

Fact : they are fewer and fewer people reading printed books. Fact : the time proportion spent in front of TV is now decreasing and being replaced by computer/internet. Fact : they are millions of people writing blogs. I think that you are misleading when you think that image will overcome words. Actually the contrary is just happening.

Concerning you book, don’t give up ! You will anyway meet more people telling you that writing a book is too difficult and that the market is decreasing, and so on,etc. But as you can see from the above comments, they are still some people that who think the opposite.

I think that what you are doing at commandN is great, but please do not videocast your blog !

29/01/08

I READ THIS! Now I will write.

I too am an ‘early adopter’, but I would guess I’m at least double your age. “. >

I agree, reading is a low ebb.

Even though I’ve known Steve Jobs for years and admire his visionary approach to media, I disagree: reading is not dead. It’s in a serious state of ’slumber’, but it’s not dead.

The use of video and audio are extremely powerful, tools, however, unless either is well ’scripted’ they ramble and loose interest. What is a script? It is a written guide. That guide must be read to be followed. So, no matter if you were to convert to 100% visual and auditory modes of communication – there will be a need to ‘write down’ the script to keep order.

Reading is more important to the human psyche than for the mere purpose of getting information. Reading is a mental exercise that works areas of the brain not worked through other input stimuli. Thus, if we assume or worse, work toward a ‘reading is dead’ point of view, we will loose the innate ability to create what we think will be the next level of communication.

So, keep writing. If for no other reason, both of us need the exercise.

I WROTE THIS! And you’ve read it.

Case closed. Keep writing … they will read.

les

03/02/08

wow.. that’s a really sad story for our generation.

I too have even started thinking about adding video – an in depth article just takes too long for most people to read and they lose patience (hell, even i do that)

Agreed, I don’t read newspapers too often (prefer my google reader – and no english one here for that matter…) for the news, but as for books? There’s nothing like shutting off the hmmmmm of a computer for a while and relaxing with a good book.

And 1 book/year? Not that I read a tremendous amount but wow – looks like we need to be shutting off the TV a bit more…

09/02/08

Print is not dead.

Print is random access – I can skim, preview the conclusion, look over the shape the argument, focus and refocus. I can read faster than I can listen.

Video is linear and s l o w. It has both a higher production cost (time) and consumption cost. It adds competing channels for one’s attention such as considering how you look or what’s in the background. If you have an accent that I can’t understand (or I do) it gets in the way. Audio is not much better.

What I could really use is decent transcription software for my voicemail.

18/02/08

An interesting thesis, and I believe we must divide “readers” into three groups.

First we have those who read simply as means to an end: navigating around Facebook and MySpace, sending SMS and IM messages, and so forth. These are the people who type in all lower-case, use little (if any) punctuation — we all know the type. No doubt they will be pleased to see the demise of the written word in favor of the spoken, as it will allow them to regress from their current semi-literacy to complete illiteracy. No doubt it will permit the regression of what little critical thinking they’ve developed, as well.

Then we have those who read and write because they need to: to extract information, conduct everyday business, and as a requirement of their jobs.

Finally, we have Readers, people who read for pleasure, who are able to curl up with a book and allow the written word to engender private sounds, images and feelings tempered by their own memories, experiences and previous exposure to ideas. This, as opposed to the presentation of visual and auditory information filtered through someone else’s vision.

I believe the parties of the first part will not miss the written word — until they are, for some reason, cast into some limbo that does not support the iPods, smartphones and similar purveyors of other people’s imaginations. Those of the second may already have demurred in favor of the idiot tube and its sound bites. Readers, however — real readers — will always read, and will always need real writers with imagery skills to sustain the creation inside their own heads of those delightful circumstances that (probably) only a true reader can know.

24/02/08

An jealous famous american people applying his bracelet at me grow an thud to my polar daydream.

01/04/08

I think your early-adopter gene is on overdrive here. I thought Jobs was speaking to the fact that people don’t read books. I thought it was more an indictment of the American people more than anything. Will printed media die, yes. In our generation? Possible, but unlikely. I can scan a retrieve information from a written article much quicker than I can from a 20 minute video. The ability to scan and parse video with context quickly just isn’t around yet. With the struggle we’re seeing with semantics just around text-based mediums I don’t know how quickly we’ll be able to apply that to video in the near-future.
So keep blogging. It’s far from dead.

26/06/08

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