Thad McIlroy - The Future of Publishing

Tyson Homosexual Nearly Sets Two Records

Many will have read the news that last Sunday Tyson Gay set a new record of 9.68 seconds in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, although the victory was disqualified as a world-record because it was "wind-aided."

The story making the blog rounds today is a hilarious footnote to his notable performance.

A posting by Amy Gahran at Poynter Online retells the story of OneNewsNow, a site run by the Christian American Family Association. The site's automated filter substituted "Homosexual" for almost every occurrence of "Gay."

This lead to some truly remarkable prose, including:

"Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.

"His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing.

"'It means a lot to me,' the 25-year-old Homosexual said. 'I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me.'"

And so this is one record for Tyson Gay that can't be disqualified because it was wind-aided. It was aided by mere human phenomena.

Gahran provides her primary source for the story, the Sleuth blog on WashingtonPost.com, and admirably commends that blog's author, Mary Ann Akers: "She includes a rundown of the bloggers who spotted and initially covered this story, with links to the relevant posts. This is not only the ethical thing to do (crediting the people who really broke the story, and sharing their insights)  -  it also makes the story much more interesting, by allowing readers to dig deeper.

"Plus, when you link to original blog posts, readers also get to see the conversation happening in the comments  -  which in this case are absolutely priceless."

I'm not sure what the lesson is in all of this for the future of publishing: I'm happy to enjoy it just as is.

Barack Obama and the Future of Publishing

As I watched the news reports on Tuesday evening indicating that Barack Obama had captured the Democratic nomination for president, I quipped to myself, "Time for a new blog entry called 'Barack Obama and the Future of Publishing'." But, I thought, I didn't recall publishing as a theme of his campaign -- I couldn't recall Obama mentioning the "p" word once.

Google has 1,310 entries for "Barack Obama" AND "the future of publishing," and 434,000 entries for "Barack Obama" AND "publishing." I'll admit I didn't read them all, but the focus was that Mr. Obama had written two bestselling books, and a slew of new books about him are now anticipated.

Finally today it dawned on me: Barack Obama may not have talked about publishing or where it's headed. Instead he demonstrated from the first day of his campaign that he understands the future of publishing and put that understanding into robust practice. As a Wired blog headlined it on June 3^rd, "Obama, Propelled by the Net, Wins Democratic Nomination."

The blog entry states it bluntly: "Obama owes his victory to the internet." I agree. When you look at the strength of his main challenger, Hillary Clinton, as they headed out of the primary gate, it seemed impossible that Obama would gain the nomination. His margin of victory was not huge. But what other single factor can be established as the reason for his victory than the remarkable use of the full power of social networking, singularly enabled by the Internet?

There's some very good coverage of the mechanisms by which all of this was put into place, so I won't repeat them here. To understand this extraordinary moment in the future of publishing, examine these links: 

1. CIOZone: "The Barackobama.com Difference" (with good information on the technologies employed)

2. BBC News: "Internet Key to Obama Victories"

3. Rolling Stone magazine: "The Machinery of Hope"

4. Business Week: "On the Web, Obama Is the Clear Winner"

The Beauty of Blogs

There are perhaps few readers of this blog who also read The New York Review of Books. That would be understandable, as the current issue features reviews of the first volume of a biography of Ezra Pound, then of a 615 page book that examines just the last year of the war in Japan (1944-1945), and also a review of a book called "Ten Tortured Words: How the Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion in America...and What's Happened Since" by author Stephen Mansfield.

The February 14, 2008 issue, still online, has a wonderful feature just called "Blogs", written by Sarah Mansfield, who confesses in the first sentence of her piece: "Two years ago, I was given a dreadful idea for a book: create an anthology of blogs." As is often the case in The New York Review of Books, the reviewer covers multiple titles, in this case ten different books concerned with blogs and what they signify.

I've never read a more eloquent or revealing article about blogs: where they originated, what they signify, how they impact other media, and where they're headed.

Her concluding paragraph gives a sense of the tone of the review: "Blog writing is id writing—grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty. Whether bloggers tell the truth or really are who they claim to be is another matter, but WTF. They are what they write. And you can't fake that. ;-)"

A must read!

The Science of Blogs

On April 15th the Wall Street Journal, in its own Buzzwatch blog, offered a report and a background interview on what's really going on when people read blogs, and what keeps them doing so. (The Wall Street Journal online is offered by subscription only, but the blogs don't require a subscription, so the URL attached above should work -- I'm having some trouble with it, but it will at least take you nearby.)

This blog was inspired by a learned journal article called "Exploring the Role of the Reader in the Activity of Blogging," authored by three learned men at the University of California in Irvine, and presented the previous week "at a conference on human factors in computing."

The intro to the WSJ blog states the author's proposition on the importance of this research: "The question of what drives people to read blogs is a big one for traditional media losing time with their audiences to the Internet and companies looking to tap the Web for marketing," author Tom Weber writes. Fair enough, although perhaps not very deep. The three authors of the article offer no more profound an explanation of the significance of their study. "Despite the medium's interactive nature, most research on blogs focuses on either the blog itself or the blogger, rarely if at all focusing on the reader's impact. In order to gain a better understanding of the social practice of blogging, we must take into account the role, contributions, and significance of the reader," they write.

A quick proviso is in order: the study involved only fifteen participants, all under the age of 40, by all accounts a statistically-insignificant sample. At the same time Bill Tomlinson, one of the report's authors, does not shy away from this question, and defends the decision. "In the early stages of research into a topic," he states, "it's often helpful to begin with small qualitative studies such as this one in order to figure out the key issues. Quantitative studies with larger sample sizes are then useful for refining the understanding of these issues and developing statistical analyses of specific phenomena," he tells Tom Weber. I don't disagree with the essential argument, but, come on, surely fifteen respondents falls far short of science. Oh well, let it be. What was discovered?

When I read a scientific paper as part of my research for this site, I often just skip to the conclusion, looking for the meat. I leave it to the reader of this blog to see if she or he can find any meat there. The Wall Street Journal interview is more pithy and direct.

The main points:

1. Blog reading is (or can be) habitual, somewhat akin to watching a TV series. However bloggers don't seem to care if they miss an episode, and just move on to the next entry.

2. Nonetheless, the personal nature of blogs encourages a higher degree of interaction by the reader than does television.

3. The audience for a blog is highly varied (unlike television?), and this has some implications the bloggers should keep in mind.

4. The first comment to the Wall Street Journal blog is from someone named "Nicolas" who runs a site called "Managing IO: Ideas and Trends to Tackle Information Overload." His site appears to offer both more ideas and better links than the whole WSJ blog and the referenced study.

Let scientists continue to study this thorny subject, perhaps applying a little more rigor than has been found here.

Tim O'Reilly has decided that bloggers need a Code of Conduct

Tim O'Reilly, almost always a provocative, innovative thinker about all things Web, has decided that bloggers need a Code of Conduct (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft_bloggers_1.html).

A colleague and I were discussing blogs and Web site feedback generally on Friday night at dinner. Last year I held some early enthusiasm over the prospect of allowing just about anyone to say just about anything on each and every topic on this Web site. Now I'm hesitating.

I have added the standard commenting feature to The Future of Publishing blog. This works the way it does on most blogs, except that I review first-time posters before allowing their comments to appear, just to keep the yahoos out.

It had been my plan to have a similar commenting mechanism throughout the site, encouraging folks to comment on any of my conclusions and allegations, and generally to contribute ideas and commentary to the debate on the future of publishing.

I haven't bothered to do this yet, and I'm not in a hurry. The reason is that I've now been watching the types of comments that flow into the average blog, and find them ranging between the annoying and the banal. They are about as close to "conversation" as one can find on the Web, which is to say poorly-considered, lacking insight, ungrammatical – generally of no interest whatsoever.

I attend a lot of conferences, and often moderate sessions where the audience is invited to participate and comment. My experience has been consistent: if the audience really knows the topic under discussion, they often offer insightful and challenging commentary. If they don't know the topic well, they natter, causing only boredom and annoyance.

It's only human.

As are the responses on blogs.

I don't think that Mr. Reilly's Code of Conduct has much value as it fails to address the most fundamental issue of blogs and their respondents: neither have anything interesting to say.

I think I'm happier with my (just dubbed) "pull blog" approach. If I find something interesting on the Web I point to it, and explain why I think it's interesting. I don't invite the world to come and junk up my site at will: this is not community, this is not dialog. It is one person standing in a room and announcing e=mc2, and 100 others, who don't understand physics, loudly tossing out their opinions, ignoring both the original speaker and one another.

This site has a two-part hierarchy. The top level is my essays on aspects of the future of publishing. Some will enjoy these essays and find them insightful or useful; others will avoid them. The next level is where I connect to a very broad world of reporting and commentary on various aspects of the future of publishing. The material is so rich and diverse, I don't see how anyone (obviously anyone who is interested in the future of publishing) would fail to find value in most of these links.

What this site probably won't have is level three, the comments from the public section. If you'd like to contribute to this site, and I AM very interested in hearing from those who are very interested, please write to me at thad@thefutureofpublishing.com.