Chris Webb's Publishing Blog » culture http://ckwebb.com Tue, 05 Apr 2011 03:06:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Snack Culture and its Effect on Publishing http://ckwebb.com/publishing/books-and-writing/snack-culture-in-wired-magazine/ http://ckwebb.com/publishing/books-and-writing/snack-culture-in-wired-magazine/#comments Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:36:53 +0000 Chris http://www.ckwebb.com/?p=9 The March 2007 issue of Wired features a cover story on “The New World of One-Minute Entertainment” and how media is being distributed and consumed in quick and easy chunks. In a world where viewers prefer a series of 60 second webisodes streamed to mobile phones instead of weekly 30 minute program, do publishers need to adapt to keep pace with bite-sized culture?

I was particularly interested in Joanna Pearlstein’s sidebar (bite-sized, of course) 403 Ways to Slice a CD :

“An album isn’t just an album anymore – it’s an opportunity to dice a dozen songs into ringtones, downloads, blog skins, and more.”

Although there have been experiments with a-la-carte publishing in the past, I wonder if it isnt time for us to look at new and innovative ways to deliver bite-sized content to our readers. This is particularly challenging in the type of publishing I do – technology and programming, where Google already provides a seeminging endless supply of snack-sized content.

There remain very strong value propositions for a printed tech book in the Age of Google – convenience, portability and being a reputable source are 3 that immediately come to mind. And until the killer e-book reader comes along and we as an industry sort out our DRM issues I don’t think the printed book is going away soon. But it sure seems like there is a market opportunity we are missing here.

What sorts of bite-sized content do you consume?

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