Many will have read the news that last Sunday Tyson Gay
set a new record of 9.68 seconds in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, although
the victory was disqualified as a world-record because it was “wind-aided.”
The story making the blog rounds today is a hilarious
footnote to his notable performance.
A posting
by Amy Gahran at Poynter Online retells the story of OneNewsNow, a site run by the Christian
American Family Association. The site’s automated filter substituted “Homosexual”
for almost every occurrence of “Gay.”
This lead to some truly remarkable prose, including:
“Tyson Homosexual was a blur in
blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.
“His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S.
Olympic trials Sunday doesn’t count as a world record, because it was run with
the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here’s what does matter: Homosexual
qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he’s certainly
someone to watch in Beijing.
“‘It means a lot to me,’ the
25-year-old Homosexual said. ‘I’m glad my body could do it, because now I know
I have it in me.’”
And so this is one record for Tyson
Gay that can’t be disqualified because it was wind-aided. It was aided by mere human
phenomena.
Gahran provides her primary source for the story, the Sleuth blog on
WashingtonPost.com, and admirably commends that blog’s author, Mary Ann Akers: “She
includes a rundown of the bloggers who spotted and initially covered this
story, with links to the relevant posts. This is not only the ethical thing to
do (crediting the people who really broke the story, and sharing their
insights) ̶ it also makes the story much more interesting,
by allowing readers to dig deeper.
“Plus, when you link to original blog posts, readers also
get to see the conversation happening in the comments ̶ which
in this case are absolutely priceless.”
I’m not sure what the lesson is in all of this for the future of publishing: I’m happy
to enjoy it just as is.
In February of this year the O’Reilly
fiefdom held its second “Tools of Change for Publishers”
conference in New York City. Though the title of the conference suggests that
it was not limited to book publishers, books were indeed the focus. Details
from the conference have been slow to emerge in cogent form.
Steve Paxhia, my colleague at Gilbane, offers a thorough
overview in the May 29, 2008 edition of The Seybold Report, but unfortunately
access is limited only to subscribers ($499 per year for the online version).
The conference site, linked above, now also offers many of the presentations and
other coverage of the event.
I was pleased to find today equally thorough coverage in
the July-August 2008 issue of The
Futurist, fortunately available online
without charge. Senior editor Patrick Tucker perhaps enjoys an advantage in his
coverage not available to Steve Paxhia: he is not intimate with the publishing
industry, and by the nature of his publication is more focused on “the futurist”
perspective than the insider’s perspective. As a result he makes an additional
effort to contextualize his coverage of the presentations and highlights of the
event.
The article struggles with the issues of balancing social
media, new technology and the value of content in a very cogent fashion. Some
of the ideas are familiar; others quite fresh and provocative.
My
favorite quote is from Lewis Lapham, until recently the long-time editor of Harper’s
magazine, and now the publisher and editor of Lapham’s Quarterly.
From Tucker’s report, “To Lapham, the crudeness, silliness, and uncultured
quality of today’s Web culture is a symptom of the immaturity of the new medium
and the youthfulness of its users. The change will be gradual. ‘We’re still playing
with it like it’s a toy,’ he said of the Web. ‘We don’t yet know how to make
art with it. McLuhan points out that the printing press was (introduced in the
West in) 1468; it (was) a hundred years before you (got) to Cervantes, to
Shakespeare.’”
According to a press
release on Amazon.com’s Web site today, the online seller “announced the
acquisition of Fabric.com, a leading online fabric store that offers custom
measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories.
“This acquisition will enable Fabric.com to further
expand its selection of fabrics and accessories while enabling Amazon.com to
offer its customers a wider variety of products in the sewing, craft and hobby
segment….Launched in 1999 by Stephen Friedman, Fabric.com has developed a
significant and loyal customer base of sewing enthusiasts, and today offers a
comprehensive line of fabrics in all three major fabric categories, including
apparel, quilting and home decor.”
Now
that’s more like it, Mr. Bezos. I’m sure your customers will be buying lots of custom
measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories in
2012. Perhaps not $2.5 billion worth, but it should be a solid little
performer. It’s those e-books that worry me.
If you’ve read the section
on this site about eBooks and (what I call) eContent, you’ll know that I’m not
a big cheerleader for eBooks. I lived through the first eBook “revolution,”
featuring the forgotten standalone eBook readers like the Rocket eBook and the
SoftBook Reader. That revolution never took off, and wound down more-or-less at
the same time as the burst of the Internet bubble. Microsoft used to offer the
Microsoft Reader software for eBooks both for its PocketPC and for don’t fit-in-your-pocket
PCs. For some reason this software can still be downloaded from a page on Microsoft’s
website that notes “Updated: May 19, 2005.” Microsoft is obviously not
currently interested in the eBook phenomena.
But when Jeff Bezos and Amazon caught the eBook fever
last November with the release of the Kindle, he managed to somehow erase
everyone’s short-term memory and has re-kindled an explosion of interest in the
eBook format. (Even The Economist
found its short-term memory damaged, stating in a June 5, 2008 article
that “… Kindle and its kind are merely the first
generation [emphasis mine] of a product that is sure to evolve quickly in
the coming years.”)
Yesterday I learned of CitiGroup’s Mark Mahaney who has
calculated, with very slim data, that Kindle could add $750 million to Amazon’s
top line by 2010. This prompted John Paczkowski on AllThingsDigital
to label Mahaney as “an honor student at (the) Strained Credibility Academy.”
Well today I learned (once more with credit to Bob Sacks) that another student at The
Strained Credibility Academy is looking for higher marks than Mark. According to
a posting
on paidContent.org, “Pacific Crest analyst Steve Weinstein argues that global
e-book sales at Amazon could reach $2.5 billion by the year 2012,” and could
add “as much as $330 million to operating income.” Wow!
Go back to my section
on eBooks where you’ll see that the highest estimate of all eBook sales last year
was $67 million. Then do the math on the CAGR
through 2012, keeping in mind that Amazon, which was originally built on
selling books online, currently accounts for only 6-8% of all book sales in the U.S.
Why did God give us analysts at investment banks? A
Google search offers only one answer. According to an article
on Innovating Tomorrow, “God gave some people the ability to analyze and
measure situations. These are people who love to do this and have some deep
seeded [I assume they mean “deep-seated”] talent for it. These are people and
gifts God has given us to use in ministry.”
I think
not. God gave us analysts so that businesses would have an external
justification for making bad decisions that they have already decided to go
forward with. The eBook gold rush is one of them.
