An Interview with Kent Anderson at WritersCast
Interview with Kent Anderson on various issues concerning scholarly publishing and the life of the writer.
Do Free E-Books Drive Print Sales? Other Forces Seem More Powerful Than “Free”
A study making the rounds about free e-books and their effect on sales has major flaws, both micro and macro.
A Renowned Literary Author Self-Publishes
Is this a watershed moment for independent publishing?
Science Blogging as a Public Outreach Tool — Unfulfilled Potential or Unrealistic Expectation?
A recent study points out that science blogs are failing to provide much in the way of community outreach and education to the non-scientist public. Is this really a failure, or is it an unrealistic expectation?
Facebook Patents the News Feed — The “One-Click” Button of Social Media Now Has An Owner
In a moment as important to social networking as Amazon’s one-click patent was for e-commerce, Facebook gets a patent on the news feed. But many questions remain, especially about prior art and what is a “news feed.”
The Internet’s Extended Cultural Memory — Is It Sapping Our Creativity?
One of the great benefits of the Internet is how it has extended our cultural memory. But has this also stolen our freedom of thought, our ability to create original works of art?
Old PhDs and the Matthew Effect — Is the Attention Economy of Scholarship Making Science Too Staid?
Older PhDs, longer postdoc stints, the rich getting richer, and other factors are creating a “founder effect” and consolidating power at the upper end of scholarship. Is it a Ponzi scheme? Can grassroot efforts change things?
Platform Wars Come to the Book Business
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight.
“You Are Not a Gadget” — Why Open Culture and Technocentric Philosophies Are Ruining Our Lives
Jason Lanier’s manifesto about the open culture exposes its lack of ingenuity, its commercial depredations, its amoral world view, and its elitist predilections. It’s worth reading in full.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek — Or, the Story of What Happened to the Crawl in Space
The yellow letters from 1977 imperil some teens. Can NCC-1701 rescue them from this menace and prove which franchise is best?
Google Buzz: Will Social + Email = Happiness?
Google Buzz has dragged Gmail into the social sphere. Will it be a match made in heaven? Or does it remind users of someplace farther south?
Science and Web 2.0: Talking About Science vs. Doing Science
So far, Web 2.0 tools for scientists have failed to gain much traction with researchers. Is this because they’re tools for talking about science rather than tools for doing science?
An Oxford-style Debate at PSP 2010: A Chicago-style Hot Dog and Copyright Law
An Oxford-style debate about the role of copyright law was held at the 2010 PSP. It involved interactive polling and a lively discussion.
Rethinking Open Data Initiatives: It Turns Out Open Data Costs Money, Needs a Purpose
Experienced Open Data advocates realize that making data available costs money, making people aware of the data costs money, and creating a community of users costs money. And that data aren’t that easy to open.
How Networked Information Changes the Filter Metaphor for Journals
Image via Wikipedia I think by the end of this post, you won’t think of your editorial filter in quite the way you did when you woke up this morning. The metaphor of a filter has informed our thinking about […]