Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Archives for May 2006

Mr. Updike, You Are Missing The Forest

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One of the privileges of advanced age is the freedom to say whatever you want to whomever you want. One of the dangers of saying whatever you want, of course, is the risk that you’ll look like a clueless blowhard. Case in point: John Updike at BookExpo America 2006.

While ostensibly promoting his new book Terrorist, Updike decided to take the opportunity to remind the publishing industry that they remain, if I may quote Kirk, firmly mired in “Nixon-era technology”. Updike railed, specifically, against Kevin Kelly’s New York Times Magazine article from last week — the article, not ironically, titled “Scan This Book!”

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That’s What I Like: O’Reilly Media’s Safari Bookshelf

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Back in a more primitive time I used to lug copies O’Reilly Media’s massive technical books home from the local bookshop. I’d drop $50 on copy of Unix Power Tools and six months later a new edition would be released. Not only did those books eat up shelf space, they ate up my bank account.

O’Reilly is, without question, the leading technology book publisher. Their books are generally regarded to be the gold standard for technical information. They publish a mind boggling array of titles covering every minute detail of the Internet and programming. How’s this for a title: Checking C Programs with Lint? No technology topic is too esoteric for O’Reilly, and no technology is too new. If it’s worth knowing about, O’Reilly will have a book coming along any day now.

Not only does O’Reilly publish great tech books, they’re also technology leaders in the publishing industry. While other publishing houses struggle with the concept of eBooks, O’Reilly launched a subscription based eBook service way back in March of 2001. Five years later Safari Bookshelf is still the only service of it’s kind.

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The Daily Loper – May 21, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

The Weekly ‘Loper – May 21, 2006

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While you were standing in line to see The DaVinci Code, here’s what we were looking at:

  • Why I Hate The Sunday Paper – And of top of all that, it’s 2006 and the LA Times still hasn’t figured out how to keep newsprint from melting in our hands.
  • Upfronts: Will Studio 60 Be The Greatest Thing Ever? – Is NBC hoping for too much from Aaron Sorkin?
  • See You Next Year! – With 45,090,999 shows on 98,909 networks (not an exact count), not to mention the Internet, DVDs, and all of the other choices for your ever-dwindling mindshare, Season Finale Season is becoming increasingly anachronistic.
  • Hillary Rosen vs. the RIAA – Though she’s currently on the side of the angels, it’s amazing how some people’s principles shift with their paychecks.
  • Upfronts: CBS? More Like CBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ – I was trying to remember the last time CBS put out a drama that I was interested in, and I seriously can’t. Is it me? Or is it them? It’s them, right?
  • No, No, Let’s Wait – Remember how Radio replaced Newspapers and how Television replaced Radio and how the Internet replaced Television? Me neither. So why do people insist on thinking that these choices are “either/or” instead of “and/or”??
  • BEA 2006: News Embargo Broken – A report from BookExpo America in Washington, DC., where oldest of old media is quite possibly having the most trouble adapting to the newest of the new media. Also, erstwhile National Nanny William Bennett? Whalelike.

The Daily Loper – May 20, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

BEA 2006: News Embargo Broken

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BookExpo America (BEA) is currently under way at the Convention Center in Washington DC and Medialoper has been on the scene hoping to make some sense of the current state of the publishing industry.

In an apparent nod to the current administration, BEA has reverted to the use of Nixon era technology. While wireless internet is available at the convention, it’ll set you back $49.95 per day (that is not a typo), reporters are encouraged to use typewriters (manual, of course), and the Scientology Racing Team appears to be the hight of technological sophistication here.

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The Daily Loper – May 19, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

No, No, Let’s Wait

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We have not (yet) instituted a “Quote of the Week” feature here on Medialoper, but if we were to do so, this would win hands down.

t would be too bad if the elders of the news business decided that the way to apply the marvels of the Internet to their operations was by a bold new push for reporting that’s hasty, fragmented and half-baked. It would be even worse if redirecting newsrooms to online news ended up by degrading the working conditions of journalists and diverting energies away from the kind of richly detailed, thoughtful reporting that exemplifies the best in journalism.

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Upfronts: Veronica Lives!! FOX, Not So Much

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I know, I know — we’ve all been reading for a few weeks now that the low-rated but critically-loved Veronica Mars was going to make the cut at the CW, but I wanted to wait until it was officially announced.

I’m so happy that I promise not to make fun of their name for at least a few months. Though I think, given all of the narrowly targeted shows that they offer — the aforementioned Veronica Mars, Smallville, Supernatural, 7th Heaven — their name stands for “Cultshow Watching.” OK, now I won’t make fun of their name.

It will be interesting to see where they go. More towards the WB than UPN, I should think. By the late 1990s, the WB pretty much took over the mantle from FOX as the network that would try just about anything. Yet anybody who actually watched their shows could see that there was much more going on than pretty white teenagers who happened to be aliens and/or superheroes.

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The Daily Loper – May 18, 2006

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Today’s links of interest: