« Fair or unfair use? | Main | HITs for HAL »
The all-seeing eye
November 03, 2005
An addendum to that last post: Google Print doesn't just raise complicated issues regarding ownership, compensation and copyright. It also provokes tricky questions about how content and form will be influenced over the longer run. At what point does a writer stop writing for the reader and start writing for the scanner?
Advertisement: Are you ready for "The Big Switch"? Nicholas Carr's new book "is the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing," says the Financial Times. Fast Company calls it "compulsively readable." Order now from Amazon.com.
Comments
New media always invite new styles of communicating. At what point did scribes stop writing on clay and start writing for papyrus? All writing is done for a reader, regardless of the method of transmission. Most web content now is repurposed from other formats and hardly changed in the process. The point about Google's project is that they want to index what's there, not create new content. If it leads to new content, fine, but television didn't kill radio, movies didn't kill theatre and Google won't kill writing.
Posted by: Mark Harris at November 3, 2005 01:57 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
The Atlantic article:
Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
Nick's new book:
"Future Shock for the web-apps era" -Fast Company
"Ominously prescient" -Kirkus Reviews
"Riveting stuff" -New York Post
Greatest hits
Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians
The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock's avatar
Flight of the wingless coffin fly
Other writing
The end of corporate computing
Nick's last book:
Order from Amazon
Visit book site