The Printed Blog

[Andrew Eason]

Some of you who are within reach of Chicago will soon have access to a printed version of certain blogs, edited together into a (gasp) print newspaper. You can find out more here:
Wired
and here:
NY Times
and here
www.theprintedblog.com
Ironically, the rest of us will be able to view this wonder....online through a PDF.

This makes me wonder again about print media and why people continue to want it. What does it mean? As new ventures like this (surely not the first or last manifestation of purely digital media turning into print) further blur the line between different sorts of publishing, our decisions about publishing become ever more complex.

Does blurring this line make it easier or harder to say what constitutes publishing? Consider this thought experiment: if artists routinely published something zine-like on blogs (much as political commentators use the form now), would a second-party doing the editing and printing thereby be publishing 'zines? Or (and this is closer to my own opinion) doesn't it matter if it makes for good 'reading'?

[Pickaxe Publishing]

The hierarchies of publishing technologies is dying. Some of the greatest writing is on Blogs, and some of the worst published in Hardcover and distributed in multiple languages.

 

It makes it easier to say what publishing is - making something public.

 

From then on, technologies and hierarchical value systems are just another choice we make.

[Pickaxe Publishing]

I was discussing this with a group of young writers at TINA in Newcastle NSW recently. It is taken very seriously by them to get writing for certain Blogs, or building a readership of their own or for a collective of their peers. As they create a readership, the possibilities to get through the editorial becomes more vigorous, and publication of them more and more desired. These mind you, were a group of pretty serious writers with big-career aspirations.

I think Blogs are just the new digitised paper news press. Articles governed by editorial, paid for by advertising, distributed 'on the fly'. They (the young writers) see it as the internship toward more 'fulfilling' opportunities. Now (2 years after you posted this question) it is difficult not to see it this way. I was quite taken aback, but not surprised, to see how the 20th Century Journalistic/Writer career path had simply adapted or replicated itself to new web based media. All the difference is is the change of editorial teams, and ownership of the infrastructure.

I wonder, are the people printing this some trade printers making an entrepreneurial move and trying to sustain their dying businesses? Even the delivery boy still gets to keep his paper run! Its quite astonishing how much revenue can be generated via advertising on the web, now they are doubling their income and potential advertising sales by having print media as well. I see it as quite simple/clever business practice.

Let's face it, the internet is ALL about generating money from advertising. Content shares about 60% of the screen space on most websites, the rest is advertising. And most of it is there to dupe you in a very overt way, which lacks the finesse of being duped by Don Draper and the Mad Men of the "good ole days". It is often the hive of scheming con artists and fraudsters relying on the anonymity of cyberspace to mask blatant con jobs and lies, just to get a couple of cents from a 'click'. Few cents a click, a million clicks and BAM! Starts to add up.

Just feels like Blogs are newspapers already to me to be that bewildered by a move to a print version. Just makes people feel comfortable giving them the print version, and gives legitimacy to the writers who will contribute cheap articles for Blog publishers to exploit. No healthcare, no superannuation for the writers, just piecemeal writing to exploit and sell on. Print will long hold a legitmacy through it material permanency that people can rely on.

[Pickaxe Publishing]

Wow, and what a load of useless dross the Printed Blog is.

If I was prone to conspiracy theories, and I am, this to me looks like a great way of replacing actual print news with complete idiotic distraction. I felt my brain turning to mushy Pulp just skimming over this abomination of publishing vomit.

Then again, there's very few places in the world to get reliable print media which informs its citizenry or arms any individual with information worth retaining beyond 'goldfish' level. That is where blogs can be great, in the realm of alternative news media, like Democracy Now.