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I came across this interesting little essay the other day, and it’s been on my mind ever since. As much as we talk about paying for “content” when we buy books, music, and movies, we’ve really just paying for the medium. Books are priced based on the number of pages and whether they are hardcover or paperback. Not the quality of the writing. The most critically acclaimed film at the theater doesn’t cost more to see than the least.
In this new, digital world, we’re beginning to move beyond this. Record companies have been pushing for more tiers of pricing on iTunes. Some television shows are free on Hulu. Some only show on premium cable and DVD. Once you eliminate the physical product, distinctions between perceived quality are able to be made.
It’s no longer about supply, demand, and the price of paper. It’s about quality and creativity.
Anyway. This article is worth reading.
Recently I stumbled upon two interesting projects that aim to provide insight into who we are. One does this through a closed small American town sample and one relies upon happen chance encounters along a nationwide road trip. Both intriguing.
A collection of photographs and narrative that portray the people who make up a small American town, all 670 of its residents. The first series of portrait photographs were conducted in 1984, and each is paired with its corresponding photo completed two decades later. A longitudinal study of American life and a seemingly interesting portrayal of juxtapositions and uncanny similarities.
“What a marvelous way to get at ‘who we are’ as people. This powerful confessional book draws its strength from the truth that so-called ordinary people, not those with bold-faced names, are actually the heroes of our American drama.”
—Ken Burns, Walpole, New Hampshire
A David Lynch project that documents a 20,000 mile road trip over 70 days. Interviews were conducted at random with people they found along the road.
“The people told their story.” – David Lynch
“It’s a chance to meet these people.” -David Lynch
I’ll be first to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I mean, I thought The Tipping Point was as interesting as the next guy. But with Blink and Outliers, I was overwhelmed by this sense that he was conducting years of exhaustive research and writing a few hundred pages to tell me something I kinda already knew.
That said, his New Yorker articles are top-notch, the most recent How David Beats Goliath, being no exception. Gladwell uses examples as disparate as elementary school basketball, T.E. Lawrence, and of course, the story of David and Goliath to make his point. In each case, the key to success is simply trusting your own skills, instincts, and limitations and using them to your advantage. Maybe I kinda already knew that, too, but the article serves as a great reminder.
Any one who has read Freakonomics will be familiar with this story: A University of Chicago grad student does some research in the projects and ends up with a bunch of data about the finances of crack dealers. As it turns out, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
In Gang Leader for a Day, that grad student, Sudhir Ventakesh, tells the whole story. It all begins as a little quantitative survey conducted for one of his faculty advisors. It becomes a sprawling ethnography that takes place over the course of five years, against the wishes of his mentors and his own best judgment. Along the way, Sudhir sees the world inside the roughest projects in Chicago unfold before him in all its complexity. We meet a gang leader who deals crack and serves as a sort of social glue for the community. We meet a community leader who does what she can to help her fellow residents, all while taking kickbacks to better her own circumstances. We meet the police, charged with patrolling the projects, who never show up when called.
Ultimately, it’s a great piece of research, and a story well told.
Is the growth in the E-book industry driven by online social sharing?
With the fairly recent release of the new and improved Amazon Kindle, increased promotion through iTunes, advancing reader applications for the iPhone, and more frequent PR and media about readers’ social networks’ growth, is the e-book medium finally revving up?
Scribd is one of the leaders in readers’ networks, and they’re now partnering with major publishers to offer more bestsellers, in addition to the many “paperbacks,” magazines (can’t you get those online in another format?), and business, legal, and government documents. Even the Obama campaign and administration have utilized this service to share documents. Yet despite high purported membership and use, the application is not widely known. This partnership at the very least signals that publishers are treating the network and its related web tools like a platform for distribution, not just a promotion and testing ground.
It will be interesting to watch how this channel is adopted by the commercial book and literature world. If Amazon consumer reviews, Facebook reader applications, adoption and interest in the Kindle, and microblogging through social networks like Scribd are any indication, we can expect growth and advances in the way information about books is shared.
Personally, I would always rather read a bound hard copy of a novel or nonfiction work. I welcome the break from the flashing light screen; I will likely revisit the book at some future date at least in reference; and in my opinion, the content can lose much of its ability to communicate human emotion.
Several years ago when e-books were first being offered online in an experiment in channel, I read Jack London’s Martin Eden while toiling away at mindless deskwork (a previous employer, of course). While I was able to follow the plot and enjoy the language, I didn’t feel the frustration and despair that I got when I re-read it in a physical copy. Sure, maybe one may not want to willingly empathize with frustration and despair specifically, but the thing that concerned me was that the communication suffered. It was clearly not just the case that a re-read was necessary to “get it” – the medium itself failed me. But hopefully these companies on the upstart are also addressing the reader (consumer) experience.
Additional news on this front: Wired Epicenter
