WebVisions: Keynote

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

JohnsonLynne d Johnson

Introductions…. Lynne is the Lynne is the Senior Editor and Community Director for FastCompany.com. She has written for vibe and is always part of SXSW.

She starts by noting that the keynote is at the end of the day where everyone is tired and saturated – “so I better be exciting!”

People want to participate in the conversation

for this, keep it to 140 characters :)

Is print becoming elitist?

Presents a great list of who reads what paper.

Why do we pay for print when you can get it for free online? Print is taking a long time to understand this…

Is print becoming obsolete

Borders is doing poorly.

This only tells us that people aren’t buying books. People are still reading books and sharing books. In an age of P2P and bittorrent, what can we learn?

Digital Futures?

Social Media’s Impact

FastCompany is a publisher, but has always has an online community. At first it was separate, but the community started to become more and more important. Now users are part of the dialog -they are on the front page. Site based on drupal.

Spin is similar. And Giant. And Vibe.

Print needs to be inventive about how they engage the audience.

Digital Impact

Ebooks are doing great.

In Japan mobile phone books are doing great. Books are released just for phone. Best sellers on phones. People are producing on phones too!

Usually shorter, drama based and focused on female readers.

Many of the phone books readers have never read a real book.

The technology and faster network make a big difference.

Lots of great questions…

More then I could type here and pay attention – just remember.

  • Authority is not the only reason that people read.
  • You don’t use phone minutes when reading.
  • The phone book is also available online :)
  • You can’t trust everything you read in the newspaper.
  • Everyone here uses wikipedia (I visited several times today).
  • Only one person in the audience owns a set of encyclopedia.
  • Evolution from analog to digital.

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