• Print is dead: long live print | Times Online
  Quote from Jonathan Weber: I think one of the most interesting things to emerge in the media business this year will be a comeback of sorts for print.
  (tags: magazines newspaper print printisdead)
• Things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart) | Seth Godin
  Quote - Suing people is like going to war. If you’re going to go to war with tens of thousands of your customers every year, don’t be surprised if they start treating you like the enemy.
  (tags: business music)
• Printer Goes Green | FolioMag.com
  Quad/Graphics hopes to become the first major commercial printer to have all of its major manufacturing sites designated as green buildings.
  (tags: printing greenzine)
• Townhall.com launches a magazine | Mr. Magazine weblog
  What do you do when your web site reaches 2 million people coming to the site each month, over 250 columnists, 120 partner groups, a dozen talk radio shows, and more than 4,000 grassroots bloggers.?
  (tags: magazines printisdead)

Scott Rosenberg is working on a book about the history of blogging. I’m thinking of writing a book, also. Mine will be a detailed look at the history of books about blogging.

Made me start thinking: What actors will play what roles if the book becomes a movie? (Feel free to comment below.) (Actually, I’m thinking if it makes it to film, it’s more likely to be animation — or perhaps a schlock thriller.)

Note: Lameness aside, I think Scott is an excellent author for a book I believe is much needed. I look forward to reading it. Back in July, Scott was kind enough to point to a post I made on the subject of a need for such a history — or “histories,” as I suggested. Glad he’s doing it.

Rexblog Flashbacks: In 2004, I wrote a rather long post about books I thought were “accidentally” about blogging. A few weeks before that, I wrote a brief post suggesting that before a “blogging book war” broke out, all the authors should surrender and find other topics. That today there are 320 books one can buy on Amazon that have the word “blog” in the title obviously proves no one took my advice. (Add in phrases like weblog, blogging, etc., and you’ll find many more.)

There are a lot of good things David Carr discovered during some recent vacation time. He re-thought the power of media created for ones personal joy. He spent some quality time with family and discovered some fun things one can do with photography that, in the past, would have been impossible without high priced equipment.

But then, Carr slumps into viewing his fun time through the prism that many media pundits do when they discover a new toy: If one medium is ascending, it must be at the expense of another medium. There is some need pundits have to always see the emergence of new media as a zero-sum-game in which all other media stand-still and ultimately die off — which is the premise of the joke in the post immediately preceeding this. Perhaps in college, these pundits skipped Marshall Mcluhan’s warnings against doing this.

Here’s how Carr expresses his notion that if one medium (in his case, personal media like organizing photography), increases, then another one decreases.:

“Is it any wonder that last year had the fewest number of new magazine start-ups in 16 years, according to Samir Husni, a professor at the University of Mississippi who keeps track of such things? Or that publicly traded newspaper companies have lost $23 billion in value in the last four years, according to Alan D. Mutter, a former newsman and currently a managing partner at Tapit Partners?

So, for clarification purposes: Having the means to organize photography and hang out more with ones family and friends in ways that involve media is NOT the reason newspapers and magazines took a hit last year.

Look, I think what David Carr did was great. I do it myself. I’m in the business of creating niche and narrow media and I’m a near zealot in evangelizing the importance of personal media created by and for the few. But the notion that this is what’s killing big media companies is ludicrous. Big media companies are contracting because they are just now understanding what’s taking place and haven’t convinced investors they know how to embrace the tools and approaches Carr outlines.

Chances are, when their employees take off time and start playing with new technology, they will.

This is not a zero-sum game.