Tomas Martin @ 21-12-2007
Tomas Martin @ 08-12-2007
Amazon’s Kindle ereader received a rather lukewarm reception. Although some of the concerns related to the high price of both the gadget and the ebooks ($299 for the Kindle plus prices for books not much cheaper than the hard copies they replaced), a lot of vitriol was directed towards the rather clunky design, which resembled something out of the 70s version of Battlestar Galactica.
Over at ‘Industrial Design Supersite’ Core77, they are having a competition to design sketches of e-readers that might live up to the kind of design standard mp3 players have led us to expect. The competition is open to both computer and hand-drawn designs and is open until Tuesday. If you are interested in an ebook revolution, maybe you should enter your own idea. If not, you can still check out some of the interesting sketches so far.
[via Treehugger, image from the contest]
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Tomas Martin @ 30-11-2007
A lot of the plans for sustainability try to provide the energy for what we already do using new sources of power. Whether you subscribe to the peak oil camp or you fear global warming or even if you want to prudent ahead of a possible recession caused by sub-prime mortgages, each problem has the same solution: use less. Buying less consumables, reducing food miles, rebuilding soils and producing electricity from renewables can only do so much.
Transport is a huge part of the energy (and money) we spend. A future coming to terms with the ‘Peak Century’ will need to travel much less distance for work, play and neccessity. The 50 mile commute seems illogical now at close to $100 dollar a barrel of oil. If oil gets harder to extract and prices rise, that commute won’t just be an annoying expense, it’ll mean bankruptcy. Fortunately new technology has arrived, seemingly perfect timed to coincide with reducing our carbon footprint and energy consumption.
A geologist recently said “My hopeful view is that we’ll be living like we did at the turn of the 20th century, but with computers.” I like the analogy. The internet and low-energy computers offer us a real potential of making a low carbon economy yet still providing jobs and a worldwide community. As Worldchanging puts it, the ‘High bandwidth, Low Carbon future’ could be both sustainable and more personally fulfilling. Google is investing $100Million in Green computing and the Asus EEE laptop uses 11 watts. All this talk of choose your own price music, online markets for fiction and e-readers is important because it’s a first step to creating an entertainment economy that could work in the low-energy world that’s coming, sooner or later.
[picture by jaaron]
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Tomas Martin @ 22-11-2007
Following her great post on the future of speculative fiction magazines and discussions with the editor of Clarkesworld, Erin Hoffman has created a wiki page to accumulate ideas about a new business model. This is a key time where if things are done right we can create an online medium that benefits writers, editors and readers, unlike the horrible DRM-filled Amazon Kindle model. Sooner or later a good method of reading ebooks is going to take off, whether it’s a Sony Reader, an Iphone or something new. Thinking about a new model now means speculative fiction will be in a position of power when that time comes.
I like the idea of tipjars on stories, or using a Radiohead-style pay what you like subscription model. Magazines available bimonthly for a $2 minimum with the option to give more, for example. Having discussions about stories with the author, tuckerisation and bonus stories are all ways of making the purchase more appealing but there are more options out there.
There will be a sweet spot of pricing that makes a short story or a magazine an impulse buy, much like a 99c mp3. Making the fiction freely available in multiple formats with no DRM is vital. A Last.fm style chart or a facebook ebook application where people could display and read their favourite stories might be a success - people love to show off to their peers what they’re into.
What would you want to see in an online fiction magazine? Join in the debate at the new wiki, or in the comments.
[via Erin Hoffman's livejournal, picture via technobob]
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Tomas Martin @ 19-11-2007
As you may have noticed, Paul has been putting lots of links to other online fiction markets over the last week or so - we hope to encourage people to read the stories from all over the interweb. The topic of internet vs traditional publishing has been sweeping the sf blogosphere recently and there are some superb opinions on the subject. Some notable contributions include Erin Hoffman at Homeless Moon, the editor of Clarkesworld, Tobias Buckell, Booksquare on the viability of the iphone as a ebook reader, Paolo Bacigalupi’s superb 5-part critique of the state of the current print mags. Heavyweights John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow and Warren Ellis all helped start the debate.
The print medium hasn’t had such a quick transition into the internet world of the twentieth century, giving it the advantage of seeing how badly its brethren in the music and film industry have dealt with change. By stubbornly trying to hold on to old business models and suing many of those uptaking new technology, music and film executives alienated large quantities of their target audience and only recently has there been movement towards a sensible model. As digital paper and ebook readers get closer to producing an enjoyable reading experience, editors and authors will have to adapt to the digital age too.
The print digital revolution has the advantage of hindsight - we’ve seen how badly avoiding the idea is and have some element of time to start thinking about alternatives. Whether by email weekly story subscriptions, ebook purchases, tipjars for individual stories or community collection before posting, the internet is offering alternatives. I’d be interested to know what Futurismic readers feel about the debate. Of course, we can’t move to a new writing paradigm if people aren’t reading - so travel to some of the links on the side and read some of the great SF out there on the internet already!
[via Tobias Buckell, image from the latest cover of Clarkesworld magazine]
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