The Telegraph reports “The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the world’s most definitive work on the language, will never be printed because of the impact of the internet on book sales.”

Can you even imagine looking up a word in a printed dictionary ever again? Perhaps while your film is developing to the sound of your favorite records.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7970391/Oxford-English-Dictionary-will-not-be-printed-again.html

A day in PARIS from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone

Please comment with other books you have been enjoying. Thanks.

Elk Hair Caddis from peter smith on Vimeo.

There may be hope. Larry Ellison promises to return to monohulls and restore the glory. He has burgeed under the San Francisco Yacht Club but recently purchased a Newport Mansion, so it is likely that 34th Americas Cup will be fought offshore a great American Harbor with a nice suspension bridge. I can’t imagine America won’t shine to the idea of a beautiful yacht defending the cup off our shores. Hopefully the costs, courts and recent lack of interest won’t keep the competition away. My bet is that the Chinese enter the fray.

Now would be the time to lock in a sponsorship while the whole Americas Cup brand is bruised and lonely.

MEDIEM IS HERE

Couple of things about Mediem, it is really cutting edge; agile-developed in Ruby on Rails by MWKrom, dreamt up by a handful of the smartest folks I know and a complex UI packed into just two elegant screens. This is no social network play, this intellectual-networking at a global level. We are all really proud of the promise, technology and design, please take a moment to check it out.

make your own predictions with this handy tool. I think there is an app too.

http://unweary.com/2010/01/prediction-score-card.html

Note that almost none of my predictions are even on the prediction sheet. . .

I am not sure if web designers will ever have that kind of artistic control again. But maybe tablet magazine designers will . . .

The scuttlebutt is that the Conde Nast, Apple, Bonnier, HP and others are working on a new standard for the display and delivery of interactive magazines. Immersive and animated, these new publications could spell relief for the industry. My money is on Apple to extend iTunes LP/Extras (the tools/environment for album liner notes and dvd-esque menus for videos) to the magazines. Then sell the magazines in iTunes to be viewed on Computers, iPhones and upcoming table (iSlate?). I think all of this runs on Webkit (the rendering engine in Safari, Chrome and other browsers).

So, the magazines never really succeeded in evolving into websites and were crushed by online upstarts. And now they may evolve into digital versions of themselves sold over the web and authored for display in a browser-based technology? What is the difference?

Stubborn Editors and Art Directors.

Web-people have been firecrackers – loose standards, no timelines, typos fixed after the audience catches them and low costs and far reach. Print Editors and Art Directors are control freaks, not because printing does not allow for errors to be fixed, but because they are control freaks; they have integrity, they adore creating something and sealing it shut, something complete and extraordinary. Magazine publishers and creators want to work on one issue at a time, release them one issue at a time and be judged one issue at a time. And soon they can in the new world.

I want in. I see the browser becoming a place where you find web tools and somewhere else (iTunes?) for Media. That is how it is for TV, Movies, Art, Books, Photography, Music and almost every other media – websites do not cut it. I design a great deal of brochure-ware and always feel handicapped – if 2010 means full screen, deep multimedia, single rendering engine and stereo sound are the new aspects of interactive design, color me adrenalized.

I do not think this is another example of Media struggling with technology, this is Media struggling with customer behavior. It seems that the average consumer is gorging media like never before, but like a whale – thousands of small morsels make up a meal. And the economics are almost the reverse of tradition. We are not buying titles, we are renting access, we are not loyal to sources, we are loyal to choice and we excpect our $200-$400/month internet, cable and mobile investment covers the licensing of the content. I have AT&T, Comcast, XMradio, and iTunes expenses. I do not subscribe to a newspaper or magazine and I have not purchased a DVD in years, but my Media costs have skyrocketed. I do not think there are large sums of my money headed to the Studios, they too are earning like whales eat.

The studios are also losing the one-to-one connection with the consumer. Never mind the physical resonance with the brand when we purchase physical media, but the satisfaction of rental is reflected on Netflix, not Paramount. The marketing, packaging, retail and distribution choreography is major part of the Studio’s workload and presumed value.

So, there is still money to be made, lots and lots of money, but in a whole new manner- finish movie, upload to server, collect money forever (no need for grand opening weekends). Just let Apple and Netflix manage marketing and distribution. Best part about this model, the Studios can focus on making great movies, not forcing us to reluctantly buy landfill-destined media we watch once. Making great products means making happy customers – the essence of a good brand and great business model.

(Another thought – Apple has $34,000,000,000 cash on hand – how much of that would they need to buy Netflix?)