“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
- Steve Jobs on eBook readers and the [...]
Entries from December 2008
The Long Decline of Reading
December 28th, 2008 · 47 Comments
Tags: book · edu · future · spec · tech · web · writing
The ‘Chinese Rejection’
December 24th, 2008 · No Comments
Probably an urban myth, but the ‘Chinese Rejection’ letter from publishers is a good laugh:
“We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall [...]
Tags: book
ARGs conference slides now online
December 21st, 2008 · No Comments
Most of the slides from the ARGs in Charity and Education conference are now online, in a lovely Slideshare-embedded format. You name it – PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF – we’ve got it. There are also some links to good blog writeups of the conference, in case you want more commentary.
Next time, we’ll record the sessions on [...]
Tags: arg · conference
My Daily Read
December 7th, 2008 · 2 Comments
“You’re better off reading a bunch of blogs than most columnists.” – me, earlier today.
Every time I open the Guardian, or the Times, or any other newspaper, I am disappointed by the poor quality of the columns and editorial. For the most part, they’re barely-informed polemics that are constrained by word limits and motivated by [...]