[FM Discuss] Article for discussion: Publications are not for peers

[Andy Oram]

Oh, I agree, and I could have warned you not to get sucked in to all the "future of publishing...future of journalism...future of manilla envelopes" (well, might as well throw them in too) discussions. There are far too many of them at O'Reilly.

Most laughable are the music recording manufacturers. "Hey, let's save a lot of money by digitizing our products...WHAT! People are making copies!!!!"

Andy

----- Original Message -----
From: "adam hyde" <adam at flossmanuals.net>
To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 10:56:56 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] Article for discussion: Publications are not for peers

hey Andy,

This 'peer review' issue is interesting. I asked a question at foocamp
to an author (I cant remember her name) about how online media effects
the writing process and her response was that its great that she can now
post material and have feedback from people (peer review). This is what
the net and digital media meant to her when it came to publishing.
Basically, take publishing and add something on the side.

It reminds me a lot of going to see some video artists present at the
Tate Modern some years ago. They talked about their practice, and the
golden day of video art and what they do now. At question time I asked
them 'what does digital media mean to you?'. Their answer, and i
remember it clearly, was that its soooo cool to have these handy little
digital screens on the side of the camera so you can see what you are
filming.

That was it. They didnt get, nor did the author, that networked media is
not an add-on to an existing practice. It transforms the entire model,
shifts what was important away to some dusty archive and reposits
fundamental questions about what it is we are actually doing.

I think this is why I was frustrated by the 'reimagining the book'
discussion at foocamp. We don't need to do this, we need to reimagine on
much much broader terms.

adam