Malcolm Gladwell is missing the point
And there’s plenty of other information out there that has chosen to run in the opposite direction from Free. The Times gives away its content on its Web site. But the Wall Street Journal has found that more than a million subscribers are quite happy to pay for the privilege of reading online. Broadcast television—the original practitioner of Free—is struggling. But premium cable, with its stiff monthly charges for specialty content, is doing just fine. via newyorker.com I haven’t read Chris Anderson’s book “Free”. But I’ve been reading enough to realize that Gladwell is missing the point in his review. Read more…
Just discovered that the Tacoma Library checks out audiobooks online. That’s an awesome service! Will eBooks soon follow?
From the TPL site: “Available online 24/7, this library is always open! Explore our growing collection of downloadable Audiobooks. You can download selections to your to your computer, transfer them to an MP3 player, or burn selected titles onto a CD for listening on-the-go. Borrow up to 10 items for 21 days using your valid Tacoma Public Library card and PIN. It’s quick, easy and you can do it anytime! More at the Library. Via The Melon.
Signing off from ErikEmery.com for two weeks …
So I’m trying something new. For the next two weeks or so, Erikemery.com will go dark and I’m going to move all my blogging to ErikHanberg.com, which I’ve created using a service called Posterous. via erikemery.com We’ll see how this experiment goes. But keep checking here for updates!
What will the Wave bring?
After two hours of reading about lifestreaming, online collaboration, and social networking, I’ve come to the conclusion that Google Wave is the unknown. What happens next will have a lot to do with how that works.
Are Atoms Really the New Bits?
I’ve long thought that it would be great to have a manufacturing machine that could take basic raw materials and some downloaded information to assemble them into a finished product. There’s actually a name for this concept. It’s called a Santa Clause machine. I could imagine a machine that took in recycled aluminum, possibly empty beer cans, and produced car parts like the frame, body, wheels, and engine. After downloading the information, the rate at which you could produce a car would only be limited by your rate of beer consumption (or you could collect cans from along side the Read more…
Interesting post about tech and the Amish.
What we can learn from the Amish … “The Amish and minimites have something important to teach us about selecting what we embrace. I don’t want a lot of devices that add maintenance chores to my life without adding real benefits. I do want to be slow to embrace technology that I can back out of. I don’t want stuff that closes off options to others (like weapons). And I do want the minimum because I’ve learned that I have limited time or attention.” –Kevin Kelly, The Technium http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/06/why_technology.php
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