The End (Boris Kachka, New York Magazine)
The kind of targeted, curated lists editors would love to publish will work even better in an electronic, niche-driven world, if only the innovators can get them there. Those owners who are genuinely interested in the industry’s long-term survival would do well to hire scrappy entrepreneurs at every level, people who think like underdogs.
Part Three: Bookstores vs. Online (Joe Wikert, Publishing 2020 Blog)
Why do loyalty programs always just have to be about one store/chain? Why can’t there be a loyalty program that includes two or more stores I shop at most frequently? One might be a bookstore but others might be a grocery store, an electronics retailer or maybe a gas station. Points accumulated at all these locations would be pooled together so that one month I might redeem them for a book and the next month I might use them on my gas purchase.
The Future Of Media Round Table (Media Magazine)
Esther Dyson — I think part of what’s happening is that as more and more media becomes possible, different kinds of information find their most suitable venue. Yellow pages are stupid on paper and they make more sense online. Whereas a book, that’s linear; you’re supposed to read from beginning to end, so it’s fine on paper. So I think they’ll persist in those forms. And a sort of visual-display kind of magazine makes a lot of sense. Anything that is interactive, where the data changes, like stock prices, again, makes no sense on paper.