Post2000

Rent-a-Gookle

I want to read that new book by the Management Guru everyone's talking about, say. But I'm not really interested in possessing it because such books have a short life span and a rapid use-by date. Certain editions of books of fiction, or historical research, or poetry, may warrant the purchase of a book. But why would one actually want to buy a book on marketing or sales, if the book can be accessed otherwise for less money?

Google is at it again. They want to be able to rent books for 10% of their bookstore value. Of course, you will not be unable to print nor download the book, but can only leaf through it for a week. Google has already discussed the idea with a publisher, who thought 10% wasn't enough.

L'éditeur trouve ce prix de location trop faible mais estime qu'il s'agit d'une opportunité importante de pénétrer le marché du livre numérique. [Source]

"Yeah, but it'll never replace the book." Supposedly that's what our foreparents said when the radio hit the scene. The children of those foreparents went on to say, in turn, "Yeah, but it'll never replace the radio." They were referring to the telly. And what have we heard about the Internet, Walkman and other information innovations? Now you know why I'm reluctant to pronounce Google's idea dead before its birth.

Having said that, I think Google's idea of renting as opposed to selling the books is superior to all other online book ideas I've heard so far.

A potentially successful idea or not?

I dislike e-books intensely, however, for the simple reason that an e-book's advantages are irrelevant to me (except their ability to spare the lives of trees), while a hardcopy book's advantages remain important to me. Maybe if every time an e-book was opened, an aperture somewhere near the computer screen sprayed out a paper-based perfume, with a whiff of dust and an even lesser one of moisture, perhaps I would like e-books then.

Google isn't the only company interested in this perhaps-one-day-soon-to-be-big market. Random House has recently laid out its plans, and not to be outdone, Amazon says it "will allow readers to purchase selected pages or chapters from a book in electronic format."

Lego + Batman

Les marques inspirent... à voir le film Batman+Lego en animation 3D réalisé par la DaveSchool.
Via MilkAndCookies.

Si vous avez d'autres exemples (affiches ou films...) co-brandés par des particuliers... je suis preneur.

Off-Peopling

"The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the dawn of the Post-Market Era." That's the title of a 1995 book by Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET).

Automation is destroying jobs faster than it can replace them. The benefits of the increased productivity go 100% to the owners of the machines, and none to the workers displaced. What are the consequences of this? What will happen if this trend continues and accelerates to include white collar jobs, and even jobs currently handled by PhDs? This essay is a work in progress to examine those issues. [ Source... ]

In 1994, Stanley Aronowitz and William Difazio penned "The Jobless Future: SciTech and the Dogma of Work." In it they encourage the reduction of working hours from about forty to thirty as a means of creating jobs and freeing time for the individual. That should ring a bell if you live in France.

There is an urgent need for a sharp reduction in the workweek from its current forty hours -- a reduction of, initially, at least ten hours. The thirty-hour work week at no reduction in pay would create new jobs only if overtime was eliminated for most categories of labor.  [ Source... ]

All this is the subject of a new blog by Richard Samson, Director of EraNova Institute. Mr Samson makes the point that "off-peopling," or the replacement of normal folks by machines at work, should be considered a much bigger deal than off-shoring or out-sourcing. Here are some destinations for further details: Futurewire, Journal du Net, Financial Executive and Computer World.

Proverbe chinois

Pour Laurent :

"Puissiez vous vivre en des temps intéressant."

Je vais en faire la signature de ce blog.