BoSacks Speaks Out: It's a Digital World Now

BoSacks Speaks Out: It's a Digital World Now
http://www.writersdigest.com/article/its-a-digital-world-now/
by Bob Sacks
Insiders Bob Sacks and Samir Husni square off in the magazine industry's hottest debate: Will print magazines survive-or even thrive-in the next century? Here's what Bob Sacks had to say.

Intro: Bob Sacks, better known as "BoSacks," is a 38-year veteran of the publishing industry whose e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web: Media Intelligence," reaches nearly 12,000 readers daily. Samir Husni, nicknamed "Mr. Magazine," holds a doctorate in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and is the author of Launch Your Own Magazine: A Guide for Succeeding in Today's Marketplace. Sacks and Husni have lengthy publishing résumés. Both run private consulting firms primarily focused on magazines and media. Both are well-respected experts in the publishing world. And both have strong opinions on where the magazine industry is headed.

We asked BoSacks and Mr. Magazine to share their views and let you be the judge. Here are BoSacks thoughts on the future of magazines. . Click here (or the link at the end of the article) for Mr. Magazine's take.

A basic modern assumption is that things will be as they are, only more so-that is, that we'll still have the same needs, wants and desires as our forefathers, but we'll continually satisfy those needs faster and more efficiently.

Writer and publisher alert: The speed and efficiency of the future is here right now, and it's accelerating at an unprecedented and perhaps even uncomfortable rate. Because we're actually in it, sometimes we don't realize how far we've progressed into the future. But it's possible to recognize that change when we reflect on the past and look into our tedious recent and former methodologies.

Even if you went as far back as Johann Gutenberg, you couldn't find a more interesting and complex period in our industry than right now. Gutenberg created movable type and an industry was born-the rapid distribution of information as never before achieved, nor dreamed possible.

At the time, the growth of the printing press and the distribution of information were irresistible forces whose only combatants were ignorance and, to us, extremely limited technology. Of course, that limitation is only apparent with tremendous hindsight. The technology of those days was no less amazing than our reaching out to the stars or the World Wide Web. Remember, it took a single scribe more than a year to hand-copy a single book. And there were no "pre-flighting" and "spell checking" to make sure he got it right. But Gutenberg could turn out hundreds of books in a week, each one identical to the next. So, it's not hard to envision the exponential growth of ... well, everything. You no longer needed old wise men to learn from. You didn't even need to be an apprentice. You could learn anything and everything from a book. What Gutenberg actually achieved was the democratization of knowledge. Does that concept sound familiar?

From the time of Gutenberg 600 years ago, we've seen little change in our expertise except the speed with which we produce words, type them and print them on paper. But now the future portends to possibly eliminate the need for paper, and thus doom the otherwise noble process (and lucrative business model) of putting ink on paper. Is that important? Where does the importance really lie-in the creation of thoughts and words or the substrate on which they rest and are read?

In discussing the future of reading and publishing, electronic publishing is an unavoidable topic. I prefer to call the process Electronically Coordinated Information Distribution, or El-CID. It's clear that publishers must now consider themselves information distributors and be independent of a reliance on any single platform or substrate.

The reading of a book is the distribution of stored information, passed from one person to another. Could it be a book printed on dead trees? Yes. Could it be the same book delivered in electronic format? Yes. The point is that all the world's information is now available for immediate distribution in any format the reader requires.

Bernard Baruch once said, "A speculator is a man who observes the future and acts before it occurs." This seems like prudent advice for today's writers and publishers to ponder as we proceed into the future of publishing in the 21st century.

From a 20th-century perspective, one of the most wonderful things about magazines and books, apart from their content, is their amazing and convenient portability. You can read them anywhere, at any time, without a plug or an Internet connection. Simply put, magazines and books are easy to get and easy to read. With ink printed on paper you're usually provided with a crisp, high-contrast, highly reflective substrate. And because it reflects light evenly in all directions, you can read it at almost any angle. Not bad for 600-year-old technology.

On the other hand, a computer-be it a laptop or a desktop-is not so uncomplicated, not kind on the eyes and not nearly as convenient. But it can store as much information as the Library of Alexandria and can instantly summon text or images from deep within its memory or from the Web.

There's a new product called e-paper that combines the best of the new and the old media through the use of thin, lightweight and flexible displays that simulate traditional paper while providing the immediacy and versatility of a computer screen. A company called E Ink has already commercialized a large-scale version of its electronic paper technology for use in products such as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, and as screens in PDAs, cell phones and pagers.

These displays perform just as paper does and can be read under the same light conditions as paper. There's no backlight to e-paper like a traditional computer screen-it works on reflective light. You can read e-paper wherever you can read traditional paper, and it's serving as the substrate for electronic books, magazines and newspapers, the content of which can be stored, updated and changed wirelessly. The power requirements are meager, because the voltage only needs to be applied once to change an image. So, in the example of an electronic book or magazine, power would be needed only when downloading new text onto the plastic pages. Thereafter, the text could be carried around and read anywhere without using a power source until you change to the next page.

Many researchers and corporations are in hot pursuit of this new vision of El-CID, and they've already produced and sold millions of products. As this technology matures, the results of their efforts could conceivably and permanently change the face of publishing and reading.

Information distribution (formally known as publishing) is no longer just about the paper, and it's not about your computer browser, either. It's about getting all the information anywhere, anytime, on any substrate and any platform. Are we headed toward a totally paperless society? No, not quite yet and perhaps not completely in our lifetimes, but that doesn't mean we can rest on our laurels. It's a digital world now, and the digits aren't going to go away.

There is a revolution brewing and the change is us. The speed and accuracy of information distribution increases every day and we like that. The portability, costs and flexibility of the electronics improve everyday. What we want and what we will have is an easy-to-read, flexible device that that can go anywhere, be read anywhere, and have all the bells and whistles of a computer-driven web-connected cozy book or magazine. You want comfort and style. You shall have it. You want the joy of a cozy plush reading experience. You shall have it. You want to tap on that unknown word and pull up the dictionary, you shall have it. You want to check the author's references or see pictures of the settings in the book you are reading. You shall have it.

There is nothing wrong with paper, but there will come a time in the very near future when we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Mumbai Attack and Social Media

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Mumbai Attack and Social Media
This article isn't so much about magazines as it is about modern journalism or a new form of modern journalism. It is a segment of the way that we will communicate. Twittering is just like text messaging except that instead of a one-to-one communication stream, you can be communicating to two or three or to 15,000 people at the same time. All the 15,000 have to do is ask to "follow" your twittered postings. I follow several twitting people and several twitters follow my postings.

Twitter is a very strange communication tool. If you have not used it yet, I suggest you give it a try, just so you understand the feel and flavor of it. Reporters all over the world are using it. Kids use it. Businessmen use it. And last but not least, some of my favorite entrepreneurs use it.

I agree with the author of this article that there is the potential for good and evil with its usage.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Mumbai attack coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media
Posted by Jennifer Leggio
http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=339&page=2

The devastation in Mumbai has been top-of-mind and top-of-the-news over the last few days - with good reason. It's also been the hottest trending topic on Twitter and covered widely as the latest disaster to be live broadcasted via tweet.

Sadly, the people writing about how cool it is that people are live tweeting the events in Mumbai are missing a huge point. What's happening now - and what is happening in Mumbai - is bigger than all of us. It's bigger than communicating via Twitter. It's bigger than just reading blogs. This is where social media grows up.

Social media is providing the ability to report and take in unfiltered news in a more direct way than ever before possible and we're doing it on a mass scale. It's no longer just a toy for early adopters and Internet nerds; it's taking its place as an influencer far beyond technology. There is, however, a downside: there's very little way to know what is true and what is rumor. As fellow ZDNet-er Michael Krigsman said to me the night, "we're trading off potential accuracy for immediacy."

He's right. On one hand, social media shows the wisdom of crowds while at the same time demonstrates the reactionary failures of the crowd.

One example: Do a Twitter Search for the hashtag #mumbai and you'll find thousands of tweets from folks near the site of the tragedy as well as folks in other countries who are offering support. People are sharing locations where blood is needed, police activity that they are witnessing, and the health status of their family and friends. This is good, minus one little point in there - the police activity. These updates have begotten seemingly urgent warnings from users reporting that the government of India is asking people to stop reporting on police movement (that includes Twitter users, bloggers and television stations) due to the fear of the terrorists using the tools to glean information. Those not tweeting for the omission of police details are calling it a hoax.

Is it so far-fetched to believe that terrorists could be tracking Twitter or social media sites as part of their overall intelligence efforts? The U.S. Army doesn't seem to think so. Last month it was broadly covered that the U.S. Army issued a report in which it claimed Twitter could be used as a terrorist tool. Many mocked this concept but I believe that mockery shows a bit of ignorance as to how any site or online communications tool could be effectively leveraged for evil - as demonstrated by cyber warfare. And look at how many articles and business decisions have stemmed from a 140-character thought over the last two years. It's not so shocking that this technology can be used for evil as well as good.

My point isn't to determine whether or not terrorists can use social media to get a leg up on their attacks. My point is that we have individuals running amok with information and we have no way of knowing if what is reported via user-generated social media is true. And in situations like the response to the Mumbai attacks, this presents bona fide danger. Remember the "roving gang" rumors that spread and created panic after Hurricane Katrina? This chaos was aided during a time when electronic communications were down. If social media had been as prevalent as it is now, it might've been worse.

Some cynics might say, "Jen, we've had this issue with mainstream news media for years. Yellow journalism?" To me, social media presents greater risks, as every single person with Internet access now has the power to report. And with such surges of information our filters for discerning truth from sensationalism are cluttered.
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Beyond sensationalism, social media can be wrongfully leveraged as a fear tactic or a platform for hidden agendas. With most social networks there are no immediate content controls. An example of this is the Wikipedia page covering the Mumbai attacks. Impressive that the page was created so quickly, but it demonstrates the lack of controls I mentioned a minute ago. For a short time on Wednesday night, this is the only information that appeared on the page:


As social media grows to take on the issues of the world beyond the bubble of Silicon Valley, we early adopters need to consider how to balance the flood of information. This goes back to the age-old argument of the ethics of journalists vs. bloggers and their ethics, but it now extends to every person. We need to take what's happening during the Mumbai tragedy and create an example of what to do and what not to do. While some controls are needed, one of the biggest benefits of social media is its transparency and freestyle communication, so is it even possible to control it at this point? Perhaps the train has left the station. Social media is complementing traditional media, and while this is new and exciting now, it's going to boom in the next few years. As the communications increase so will the risks of fallacies. We owe it to ourselves to find the balance between excess communication and truth.
Thanks to Krigsman for the Wikipedia screen shot - and for lighting a fire under me to write this in the first place.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Truth on the IDG Story

BoSacks Speaks Out: Truth on the IDG Story

BoSacks Speaks Out: This article has an interesting perspective on the IDG story I posted yesterday. Here is my take on this whole process.

Publishing and making money on the written word is not going out of style or business. We have been writing and recording our history for 25,000 years that I know of. Yes, I said 25,000 thousand years. But that publishing time line is another story for another day.

The only thing that is interesting and important now is that the medium upon which we survive is changing. If you think that people are going to stop writing and stop making a profit on that writing, then you are reading the wrong newsletter, at the wrong time, on the wrong day, and you are also grievously mistaken.

This planet will have profitable writing and advertising until we transcend the needs for any physical instrumentality at all. So what we need to focus on is this - where is the money? Where is the money coming from to pay for writing all the interesting words?

Do you think that in five years or ten or twenty no one will be writing, publishing and making a profit on the enterprising work? Do you think that organizations, both big and small, will not be distributing news, stories, and, perhaps most importantly of all, the "craft" information of how to do things to the general Public?

The real question is not if there is going to be any publishing; no, the real question on every body's mind is this - where do I fit in? What will my employment be like in five, ten and twenty years? How will I feed my family? Do I have the necessary skills to stay in this industry and make money? Those are the real questions.

And the answer to those questions is still in formation. There are still multi-billions of dollars in the print universe. Media that matters is in flux. Media that makes money is in flux. Our media universe is changing faster than we can possibly comprehend.

Here is Bo's last part of this rant. Stay loose. Stay informed. Broaden your professional interests and experiences to the maximum. You will never know what part of your training will be important until it is flying at you at Internet speeds. You need the smarts, the agility and the experience to recognize the next opportunity as it speeds by your desk. The future is bright for publishing, and there will be a need for employees to make that new world a profitable one. The only thing that is changing is the distribution platform, not the need for people to run the systems that distribute the words to the people who wish to read those words.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I

Happy IDG story no salve for dying media companies
Posted by: Aaron Pressman
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=monkzmcab.0.n6eujccab.cuf4zubab.1&ts=S0340&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessweek.com%2F


There's a happy-dappy profile of tech publishing and conference giant International Data Group in today's New York Times. The story notes how IDG's publishing arm got 86% of its revenue from print and 14% from the web five years ago but now its getting slightly over half its revenue from the web. Wow. Indeed, this is seen as some kind of important and hopeful sign for the publishing and media business at large, with a comparison to the decision by The Capital Times newspaper to abandon its print edition and a closing quote from venture capitalist Stewart Alsop that "what's happening at I.D.G. is a fairly accurate map for every other publishing organization."

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially for my own industry, but using what happened at IDG as a map for the rest of the publishing industry would be like using Christopher Columbus's charts to fly to the moon. There's a publishing pink elephant in the room that nobody in the NYT's story seems to notice. Most of IDG's publications are what's known as controlled circulation. Readers paid nothing but were selected to receive titles like Infoworld gratis based on their attraction to certain advertisers. There is no subscription revenue to the publisher and the publisher still bears all the costs of printing and mailing. So when IDG shifts a publication to the web and stops printing, it can cut costs to the bone and shift advertisers to its web site.

But most publishers charge for subscriptions - in fact they charge a lot. The New York Times collected $227 million from subscribers in the first quarter, for example, along with $458 million in ad revenue. For mainstream publishers, that's a much bigger potential loss from the seemingly obvious and simple shift online depicted in the IDG story.

The article also raises questions about advertiser behavior. A tech-industry trade publication's advertisers come from a narrow slice of the entire ad market, a slice that's likely more comfortable going online and more likely to be selling directly online than other segments. But when you look at the whole ecosystem of advertisers, especially the big players in mainstream publications, you find a rather different attitude. It's a lot easier to imagine Cisco Systems and Salesforce.com shifting ads to a web-based version of Infoworld than it is to see Tiffanys or Bulgari moving from the New York Times Sunday Magazine to the web. Research I've cited in the past examining the revenue shift for mainstream publishers concluded that its an almost insurmountable mountain.

Finally, I'm also a little wary of stories about private companies that don't disclose all their financial information the way public companies do. We know that publishing is only one part of IDG's business but not how big a part. We know the publishing division got a higher percentage of revenue from the web in 2007 than in 2002 but not anything about the dollar amounts involved. I emailed a PR rep at IDG to see if they'd disclose more info but haven't heard back. In the meantime, there's less than meets the eye for the rest of the publishing industry from IDG's transformation.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked at an IDG magazine called The Industry Standard for a few years that was shut down by the company.

BoSacks Speaks Out: What is happening in our industry?

BoSacks Speaks Out: What is happening in our industry?
www.bosacks.com

What is happening in our industry? Where are we going? And if we are going anywhere, how are we going to get there? Being dead center of the publication information fulcrum as I am, I see it all, hear it all, and well know that I don't know it all. But I do know quite a few things.

I will briefly lay out a few thoughts for your perusal and feedback.

1) Although changing, the publishing industry is not leaving this planet. It is not dying, nor even unwell. It is robust and merely going through a mighty technological transformation, a metamorphosis if you will, of huge proportions and reach. We are growing into something else. Our reach, our ability to find readership is stronger than ever. Our once small pond of potential readers has grown to an ocean. And it is no longer a one-way street. We can write and distribute our product and our readers can write/vent/agree right back at us and to our other readers too. The old one-way street is now a multi-pathed intersection of six lane highways with traffic in all directions

2) Printers should have no fear; they will do fine in the next phase of publishing. They may print shorter runs of magazines, but will no doubt print more titles, not fewer. And as everybody knows, printers make most of their profit on make-readies. So this could/should be considered a good thing. Those printers that are efficient, technologically astute and embrace the new workflows will prosper.

3) It can be a writers/editors dream world. There are more ways for writers to have an outlet then ever before. The potential of sustained readership is almost unlimited. And as always the proof is in the pudding. If it is a worthwhile set of words strung together in an interesting fashion, there is always hope for writers' revenue. One man on a small island in a small lake in the upstate Berkshire Mountains of New York can communicate daily with the world at large. And they in turn can talk back to same niche global group.
It is a cultural and professional exchange and every member benefits from the exposure.

4) Production and circulation professionals will still be needed to put it all together and sling the written product around the globe, either in print or in a digital format. Will they be called production personnel or circulators? I have no idea. But the functions and the responsibilities remain the same. Somebody writes, somebody sells and somebody distributes with the best technology at hand.

So as we move forward through this transformation nothing has changed except our efficiency to do better at what we already do - distribute thought and ideas; that is, communication. We sell and monetize a compendium of stored memory, things that our readers didn't know or wanted to know more of.

What do you think? Do you think I overstate the case? Are you ready to fly? Are you ready to move into the next golden age of publishing?

Bosacks Speaks Out: What is content?

Bosacks Speaks Out: What is content?


Content, Content, Content What is it good for? Nothing!
All this talk of content and mergers and increased content and increased
mergers. Phooey!


It's not about the content. Piles and piles of content is just that -- piles and
piles of junk. Useless to most, perhaps somewhat useful to some few dogged
focused pursuers of information. Content is not king, but quality content
might be queen. And focused quality content might be considered a king.
And Presorted Personalized Focused Quality Content might be the "Emperor of All Information" Content is the workshop where I store all my tools. Information is the exact and only "hexagonal wrench" I need to finish the damn job. Now where was that wrench? When did I use it last? I don't remember. It could be anywhere.

Here is a question -- what makes this newsletter useful to you? I think it is
the fact that I have spent 30 years doing a job very similar to yours. Not
exactly the same, but close enough. My experience empowers me to act as your "agent." I sort through the information of our industry and forward to you the best that I can find that might be useful for you to know, based on my parallel experience to yours. Am I 100% correct? No, not even close. But I am useful enough to have a very large readership. So where am I going with all this? It is not the volume of content that is important; it is the focused practical usefulness of information that makes the content valuable.

All this talk of content and the power of mergers, and the power of combined
content... Phooey! Mergers are good for business due to tangible efficiencies. Smaller head count, less office space and greater buying power. The rest is bull! Synergies? BULL! All this jabber of a "volume of content" is terribly misleading.



AOL ... and Time and Warner... Think of them as three separate companies for
a minute who have more content than the Great Library of Alexandria. So What?
Do you know that in the old great Library of Alexandria they had no idea
what they had? All they had were rolled up scrolls. Piles and piles, shelf
after shelf, room after room. I'm mean huge! For that time, it was the combined knowledge of all the ages. Awesome Huh?. NOT!


Most scrolls were not labeled at all, Just rolled up and tied parchment, placed in piles. They had little or no titles once unrolled. And absolutely none had an index or a table of contents on any publication. The concept of indexing or a TOC wasn't invented yet. So what did they have? They had tons and tons of content, without the ability to get to what they needed, when they needed it. There were no labels. Where would you begin? How would you find what you want? How would you even know what you want? Sound familiar?


I am a huge Internet user, and the truth is I love it. But there is still so
much to do. The billions of pages of information out there are for the most
part useless, until we reinvent indexing and a new system of personalized
delivery. What we need is a "true" personal agent. A computer program so
sophisticated and detailed that it does the searching and sorting based upon
our unique and personalized individual needs.

We need that computerized personalized agent that I have spoken of several times in this newsletter. An "agent" or "concierge" of cyberspace. An "agent" that fits where our wristwatches fit now. A total voice recognition system, answerable only to us. A program that will know all that is knowable about us. An "electronic friend" that will send birthday cards and meaningful presents to friends and family. It will pay all the bills and make all appointments with coworkers and doctors. An agent so integrated into the

cyber paths that my agent will call your agent to confirm or deny our availability to meet without our intervention. An agent that knows so much about us that it knows not only what we want to read, but also what we didn't know we wanted to read. That is to me the key to growth. This agent has to be so "smart" it will deliver to us not only what we have "asked for," but also information that we need to know about, but didn't know that we didn't know.

This "thing" or something very like it will happen. In fact I think it will
happen in our lifetime.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Positive News Only from BoSacks?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Positive News Only from BoSacks?
www.bosacks.com


I received a letter from a reader who said that some of his friends have stopped reading BoSacks because of all the bad news. I wasn’t shocked at the note, but I was a little disappointed. I thought that my position was clear. I wrote back that I did not think that the industry is in death mode, nor has that ever been the intent of my coverage.

Indeed I am very upbeat about our industry, and I see a bright future for the industry and the people in it. But there are a few things that have to be stated. The industry is never going to be the way it was, it is not even going to be the way it is. But the stories I send out give my readers a chance to see how the future may bend, blend and hopefully offer a place of employment if they’re smart enough to read between the lines.

The industry is changing. So what? Do you find that depressing? I do not. Change is an elixir, and should be treated that way. The possibilities of information distribution in the next few years will be nothing less than staggering. Quite possibly we could be heading into the great, golden years of publishing. Is that a downer? Not in my book.

There are no age qualifiers on my web site when you sign up, so I’ll ask this question: What were you doing five years ago? If you were in the business, what were you doing ten years ago? Are you doing the same thing now that you were doing then? I doubt it. What do you think you will be doing ten years from now?

Our technology is growing geometrically. What used to take ten technologic years to advance now takes five, perhaps even less. My advice is to be very prepared to face the future with full frontal aggressiveness and make it your friend and not your combative enemy. If technology and the future are not your friend, you are fighting a battle you can not possibly win. Basically the future is here now; it is just not widely distributed yet.

Oh, yes and I might mention that I do try my hardest to find articles that are positive about our industry. It’s just that they are very few and far between. When I find them, I send them. I also think most negative articles are not fully understood by the authors and are written with a very limited perspective. But what I do send out is important to any one in the industry. Remember, this industry's future is your future. The world of publishing is not going to evaporate. I think it will grow and prosper, in fact, I guarantee it.

As I suggested to my reader, there are two options -- we can stick our heads in the ground in denial and hope that the industry problems will somehow go away, or do our very best to stay informed about the industry and grow with it. Information is our power. That is why I am bullish about the publishing industry. We own the content. I do not care how we distribute that content. Some of it will always be on dead trees and some will be distributed electronically. So what? Once writers needed quill pens to write. Many years later came fountain pens, and then typewriters. Now we have computers. Are my words, typed on a laptop and distributed by electrons, any less important because of the method of delivery? The reading of the written word is what is important, not the pathway to receiving them. The truth is they are more important when they are as fresh as possible and only a few electronic hours old.

Have You Started Planning for E-Paper?

Have You Started Planning for E-Paper?
By Bob Sacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.printmediamag.com/doc/28808071312222 4.bsp


“Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian draftsman, Painter, Sculptor, Architect and Engineer whose genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. 1452- 1519)


Sometimes I think our industry tries to predict the future by looking at the past and assumes that if its holds its collective breath long enough, the conditions will remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rear-view mirror. Where you have been is not necessarily a good predictor of where you are going. But it can be enlightening, if you know where to look.

Let's, for a paragraph or two, intentionally look in the rear-view mirror. In the 1970s, magazines were still setting type using hot lead. In the early 1980s, long- run magazines were still printing with letterpresses— the same letterpress technology Gutenberg invented 500 years ago. In the 1990s, we learned to make digital plates that gave us unheard of speed and accuracy. Now, in the 21st century, we have adapted into an entirely new phase of publishing, exploring new and more effective ways of distributing information in the digital universe.

We now have the ability to deliver information to multiple platforms in an instant and on a global basis. We no longer consider ourselves publishers, printers, journalists and media professionals; we are information distributors. Well, at least those that are going to survive think that way.

New information delivery methods, combined with the potential for customization, promise to level the playing field for the industry's established players.

E-paper 'Ready for prime time'
One of the most exciting developments in the delivery of our franchised content is e-paper. What is e-paper? Or, perhaps I should start with, what is it not? It is not an electronic simulation of a magazine. It is not downloaded facsimiles of printed magazines, although that is an offshoot of what e-paper can produce.

E-paper is essentially a tool, a new technology for an age old format. To the publishing community, it will provide an electronic substrate that can be connected to the Internet and acts as a direct alternative to traditional paper. It's not a replacement for all paper, but much that is printed today could be reproduced by e-paper.

E-paper, in general, uses thin, lightweight displays that simulate the form and flexibility of traditional paper while providing the immediacy of a computer screen. It is a thin layer of transparent plastic that contains millions of small microcapsules randomly dispersed. When a voltage is applied to the sheet's surface, the microcapsules move to present one side to the viewer according to the polarity of the charge. So, in order to display text, microcapsules targeted to serve as the "ink" would move to the top of the sheet.

Importantly, the beads do not require a constant voltage to hold their position. Electronic ink allows a fixed image to remain on the screen even after the power source is shut off.

Companies are developing mass-production techniques for these materials that would allow them to be manufactured inexpensively in a variety of shapes and sizes. For example, Plastic Logic Ltd. (www.PlasticLogic .com) is investigating locations for a large-scale manufacturing plant for its flexible- plastic electronics displays. A director of the company says it's "ready for prime time."

Many of the devices we take for granted today, such as handheld computers, digital cameras and color printers, were once in the realm of science fiction. E- paper is not science fiction.

Is this in your business plan?

When e-paper is finally perfected will it mean the death of the printing press? Not by any means. But it will mean the end to the status quo and the creation of yet another parallel universe in the digital information age.

The future of publishing is actually something we create with our minds, our technologies, our will and our unique business plans.