2009-2018

By: Alan Jacobs

revenue

Writing below about the now-defunct web services Stikkit and I Want Sandy, I remarked that, as far as I could tell, Rael Dornfest and the other makers of those services never even tried to come up with a revenue model. Certainly they never asked their users to contribute to the maintenance of the service. Instead, Stikkit and Sandy were...

on typography

To my mind, the single biggest flaw of the Kindle may be summed up in a single word: typography. The Kindle has one typeface, which means that very page of every book looks precisely the same. (See nadezhda’s correction, and helpful further information, in the comments below.) For me, the design of a book resides principally in its...

Tim O’Reilly loves Twitter

Here. Once I realized that the only thing I liked about Facebook was the status updates, and that Twitter is simply status updates without all the other garbage, I deleted my Facebook account and started tweeting. I suppose I could develop an elaborate defense of Twitter against its many detractors, but that’s too much trouble —...

a common thread

Just in case it’s not obvious, there is at least one common thread in these recent posts about how I read and how I write: Distraction is the enemy. Yeah, I know, you think you’re a master of multitasking, but you’re not. Seriously, you are not. Okay, I mean it, Give it up. For most of us, focus and concentration are the pearls of...

three theses for disputation

1) The future of reference works will be online, because research requires the aggregation and association of divergent pieces of information. For dictionaries and encyclopedias of all sorts, there is — and should be — no going back from the hyperlink. It is almost impossible to imagine that there will be another printed edition of...

end of an era

This is perhaps slightly off-topic for this blog, but — caveat lector — I have a certain susceptibility to the Cult of Mac, so I might do this kind of thing from time to time. John Gruber, the most consistently sharp commentator on the Apple scene, just posted his thoughts on Apple’s recent announcement that in January they will...

what to write with

Before the Kindle came along, I wasn’t looking for it — I wasn’t in search of a new set of tools for reading. I was (and still am!) happy with books and with the tactics I have developed over the years for reading, learning, marking, and inwardly digesting them. (Allusion alert!) I bought the Kindle on a whim and, as I have said,...

the definitive word on the subject of the Kindle

From PEG, in the comments below: “I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think the contemporary world is so furiously enamored with the written word that we can regard an innovative way to access it as a suspicious luxury rather than an urgent necessity.”

screens and screens

Christine Rosen says, with trepidation, that “we are becoming people of the screen.” Kevin Kelly says, with eager excitement, that . . . “we are becoming people of the screen.” The chief problem I have with this phrase, whether used by Rosen or Kelly, is the casual and confident use of the phrase “the screen.” This is what...

responding to responses

A few responses to my previous Kindle posts that I’d like to address: Adam S: “Clearly there are weaknesses to the medium. The biggest one for me is that I used to remember how to find passages, especially bible passages, by feel. I would remember about where it was in the book and about where it was on the page. But electronically,...