This is not the future of the book
11 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 6 years ago -Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Don't call it a comeback
October 08, 2018 11:03Tom was in Montréal the other day for a conference and we recorded a podcast episode reviewing what has happened in the two years that have passed since the last episode. In this episode we talk about, amongst other things: How fine arts and literary fiction projects are generally more successful than software projects as they are more likely to achieve what they aimed to achieve than software. The industry cites ‘commercial viability’ without actually looking at what’s commercially viabl...
The publishing system of production
May 24, 2016 11:03In this episode we cover conferences, production systems, W.E. Deming, David Pye, and more We start off by criticising the idea that conferences are educational. Baldur refers to a two year old blog post he wrote about conferences on his old (now defunct) blog. Baldur goes off on one talking about David Pye, workmanship of risk and certainty, and, his current fav, W.E. Deming. The ebook has been designed to match a pre-existing production system, which prevents innovation. Everything gets...
Moonshots vs infrastructure
March 29, 2016 11:03In this episode we cover a schism in digital media that traditional publishing has unwittingly played into. Baldur explains what it is that makes people the most angry at him. Moonshots versus Infrastructure. Digital media Reaganomics Brute force effort versus building automation Baldur agrees with a Nazi (von Braun). Changes require infrastructure. Trickle-down economics don’t build roads. Without open source and open standards we’d still be stuck in the CD-ROM model. Paradigm clash...
You are here. What now?
December 04, 2015 11:03Some thoughts on where to go from wherever you are. Most of us aren’t in the position of even trying to make the same mistakes Touchpress did. What approaches can the rest of us take towards making new things? Without taking on VC-funding, that is. As always start with the community around you. If you can find 100 people who share your interests even before you start, so much the better. Start small, start cheap. Build up your costs and capabilities over time. Read Craig Mod’s Post-Artefa...
Money? What money?
November 19, 2015 11:03Some thoughts prompted by Touchpress’s pivot. Touchpress, who? The core problem with the app stores. The difference between bookstores and digital markets. The importance in digital of having a specific worldview. The big advantage that ebooks have over apps. Who makes money in the app store? A lot of talk about The Silent History. In praise of low budget projects, made by small groups of people. McSweeney’s. The Pickle Index. On games not being the only future of digital storytel...
Hackathons and hack culture
November 04, 2015 11:03In this episode we worry about digital publishing not moving forward to the future: How do we get ebooks and the like moving forward without wholesale destruction? We also respond to that Hackathon article. No, not that one. No, not that one either. This one. When do hackathons work? This is the episode where we sing the praises of React. No, not that react. The other one. Singing the praises of Claire Reddington. Don’t devalue work and don’t overvalue work. We talk about how big publ...
Avant-garde what?
October 22, 2015 11:03In this one we cover the following thingamajigs: Baldur talks about what it feels like to anticipate that the mainstream will coincide with your interests but then watching it go into a different direction. Three different directions, to be specific. Craig Mod’s article. (And the coda he posted on his website, which you should also read.) Fahrenheit Press’s audience engagement. Xcode playgrounds. Involving the reader. Breaking out of the insular. Any involvement of the reader is experi...
What's holding us back?
October 14, 2015 11:03Where is our magical sci-fi utopia of wonderful brilliant digital things? Why didn’t the brilliant innovations in our digital past lead to a glorious present? Inevitably this leads to some thoughts on how existing models for innovation and experimentation in publishing are… … flawed. May contain swearing. Play the episode in your browser Your browser does not support the audio element. Download episode four Subscribe to the podcast feed directly Or on iTunes And, finally, on Overcast
What does print do? What does digital do?
September 30, 2015 11:03The kitchen talks continue. This time we (Baldur and Tom) talk about: the differing qualities of digital and print; how they can complement each other; how they suffer if you ignore their strengths and weaknesses; how the novel will be fine but the rest should worry. Some things are good. Some things are bad. The whole is interesting. May contain swearing. Play the episode in your browser Your browser does not support the audio element. Download episode three Subscribe to the podcast fee...
How did we get here?
September 17, 2015 11:03In which we (Baldur and Tom), again in Tom’s kitchen, cover a bit of the history of interactive media so far and why it’s important to be aware of it. We also talk about how most people aren’t as absolutist as the punditry makes them out to be. Fifty four minutes long. May contain swearing. Play the episode in your browser Your browser does not support the audio element. Download episode two Subscribe to the podcast feed directly Or on iTunes And, finally, on Overcast
What do we call this thing?
September 08, 2015 13:03In which we (Baldur and Tom) sit in Tom’s kitchen and talk about the importance of naming things in interactive media and storytelling in general. It is almost exactly an hour long. May contain swearing. Play the episode in your browser Your browser does not support the audio element. Download episode one Subscribe to the podcast feed directly Or on iTunes And, finally, on Overcast