Re: revolution in publishing

**D* G* <d*@gmail.com>**

John et al
How and when?

If I knew the one-true answer to that, I'd be sitting somewhere on top of a
mountain.

My best guess about the how is that people will pay for value.  And that
value (while subjective) is always compared against "free". So the question
then becomes how to produce value over and above the free and how to price
it.  One such option is to charge for expertise - you can get all manner of
free (and wrong) gardening advice on any number of garden blogs.  But if you
can produce quality info - from an expert source - then the possibility of
making money from that information exists in a bunch of ways.  For example,
I sell advertising, e-books and produced an online seminar this year as an
experiment.  Three different ways to monetize online work and I'm being
reimbursed for my work.

Oh.  That must make the "when" - now.  ;-)

If you expect any form of the old system "Nobody wants to pay even for good
writing or good photography." to return, then my best advice is "don't hold
your breath"

Exceptional work will always sell - the merely good work is now cannon
fodder.  I said it a long time ago (in Net-years), it is no longer good
enough to be a good writer - you have to be an exceptionally good writer (or
photographer I suspect) to sell to or maintain a relationship with the big
media concerns.  And of course a desire to work for less money. ;-)  Being
good isn't good enough.

When does this Wild West settle down?    Let's define "settle down".  If you
mean return to old payment models? - not going to happen.

If you mean when do dominant players emerge to control the distribution of
information and demand payment for content?  There are some patterns
emerging now but generally, I wouldn't hold my breath on this.  There will
always be big guys and there will always be specialty guys.

If you mean, "how will this happen?" I haven't the foggiest although I
suspect that models will continue to evolve as fast as they can be explored.
 One will stick and become dominant.  In general, I'd expect the offline
models of information exchange to be consistent online in the gardening
world although pricing models will change.

"law abiding format" - we have 'em now in legislation and given the freely
availability of bandwidth - we'll always have pirates too.  Nothing has
changed in that as far as I can see except the ones getting burned now are
the US studios and media companies as their former golden goose monopolies
are being starved to death.  We could call it "Charlie's revenge - a tale of
two publishers" ;-)

If you want a ray of sunshine in the mix - let me tell you that Hulu is now
the number 2 delivery system of web video after youtube.  And Hulu has a
biz-plan and advertisers so they can make money while youtube continues to
bleed.  People want quality although you can argue whether the shows on Hulu
are "quality". ;-)  There are only so many really bad videos you can watch.
 Only so many really bad articles you can read. And when you find a good
reliable source of pro-quality material, you'll use it.  And find a way to
pay for it.

Bottom line - the old information distribution model and branding systems
are mortally wounded - they won't be returning any time soon- if ever.  As
the line goes - "get over it" ;-)

All the best

Doug

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:53 AM, <frielster@aol.com> wrote:

>
>  Doug,
> thanks for sharing that very good re-framing of the familiar printing
> press/internet comparisons. The upheaval caused by cheap, readily-available
> printed matter took many years to settle into a more-or-less law-abiding
> system where copyrights were more-or-less honored. Meanwhile, bootlegging
> ran rampant and authors like Charles Dickens railed in vain against
> unauthorized (and unpaid) American printings of his works.
> Now, as has been noted numerous times on this list, the internet has
> mutated from a military/academic communications tool into Everything, All
> the Time. Bootlegging is at pandemic levels and is close to being considered
> normal and right. Much of what's presented is ephemeral at best.  So how
> (and when) does this incarnation of the Wild West settle itself into a
> more-or-less law-abiding format where "content providers" are rewarded for
> their/our work?
> All hail Al Gore, the new Johannes Gutenberg. ;-)
> JF
>
>
>
>
> From: Doug Green <deegeeguy@gmail.com>
> Subject: [GWL] revolution in publishing
>
>
>
>
>
> Here's a very interesting take on the revolution in publishing -
>
> http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/tools-and-transformations-clay-shirky
> My thanks to Susan
>
> --
> Doug Green @douggreen
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Doug Green @douggreen
Editor-in-Chief
SGF Publishing  www.simplegiftsfarm.com
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