Digital Musings

When the Short Tail promotes the Long Tail...: How come experts are so unwilling to share their knowledge?

There is a lot of hype these days around the so-called Long Tail. The Long Tail idea is fairly simple. It goes roughly like this: Capitalism has endowed us with opulence (at least in developed countries). From goods to ideas, many things are available. However, we, as customers, get to see only the emerged part of the iceberg. Think of books, we see only what bookstores can carry (that is books that match their "dollar return per bookshelf square inch" benchmark over a rather short time). We don't see the rest (a bit with Amazon maybe). But the rest may be precisely what we need! So much for capitalistic opulence. Capitalism ends up synonymous of waste.

However each individual knows something that may be valuable to another person. The challenge is to find how these two people can identify each other and start to share. This is where the whole shabam of social networks, tagging, blogs, wikis, folksonomy etc... comes into motion. People at their own individual level are endowed and empowered with technological tools that enable them to spread their bits of knowledge. If I know this book that nobody knows about I can spread the gospel and attract new readers to it. In a nutshell, the "humane long tail" (me) advocates the "content long tail" (the unknown book).

Great! But how come the short tail (the experts, the gurus) does not do the same. After all, they know a great deal, a greater deal than I do. How come they are so unwilling to share? We know this for a fact at Cyberlibris: Indeed, we have more often than not asked faculty members who use Cyberlibris to share their favourite readings with the Cyberlibris community. End result, pretty disappointing in my own view.

Hope may be back though. I just read an article from the French newspaper Le Monde. As a matter of fact this is an interview of Kenzaburô Oé, a famous Japanese author who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in literature. At the end of the interview Kenzaburô Oé explains why he has created a literature prize where the jury has only one member: Him! When asked why he says that he is unsatisfied with the current literature critic system in Japan. He wants to make sure that authentic voices are heard even if they don't sell well in bookstores. And, he concludes "A weird idea of an old man, is not it...?"

No, Mr Kenzaburô Oé, this is not a silly idea. This is a bright idea that people of your calibre should buy and develop. The more initiatives like yours, the shorter the long tail!

 

When they say fast, they mean it!!!

Not convinced they ship fast at UPS? Well, this banner tells it all!

One day they'll be able to ship your parcel even before you wrap it!

This is supply chain management at its best indeed!

About blogs, tagging and averages

John Kay reminds us of John Keynes' useful remark:

"Keynes likened professional investment to a beauty contest, in which “it is not a case of choosing those which are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligence to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be”. And it is so, to the power of 67."

Kay makes the point when he saw that the Bloomberg information service was carrying 67 different predictions of US GDP growth in the third quarter. Amazing indeed! Even more amazing once one knows how close they are. As always, "It is dangerous to be right, but safe to be conventional."

I am afraid the same averaging pattern is taking place on the web. Take the example of tags. What are tags? Well, according to Technorati:

"Tags: The real-time web, organized by you. Tag is like a subject or category. This page shows the most popular 250 tags in alphabetical order. The bigger the text, the more active it is. Currently tracking 3 million tags. Last updated 12:54 AM PST."

Everything goes as if everyone could declare himself or herself a professional indexer. Not a bad thing in itself after all. You want people to be able to better locate your piece of info. Good also for professional indexers who can update their practices by observing what people do.

But, there is a but! I am afraid people will be more interested in tagging their content not in absolute terms but more often than not in relative terms. For instance they will be tempted to go to Technorati, look at the most popular tags and use them even if they are not exactly relevant. One of the reason they may do so is advertising revenues. Having more visits and clicks is fostering the attractiveness for advertisers.

I am not sure what to expect from this tagging movement. Order may emerge from what seems to be chaos right now. Who knows?

SMS et mémoire courte

Kes tu fé? Vous avez sans doute reçu ce genre de SMS. Vous avez certainement envoyé ce genre de message "peau de chagrin" vous-même. Les adolescents sont également très friands de ce genre de contractions sur MSN. Nombre d'observateurs s'interrogent aujourd'hui sur le sort de l'orthographe et de la grammaire. Beaucoup craignent que des générations entières ne sachent plus manier correctement la langue de Molière.

Mais, finalement, cette inquiétude est-elle bien nouvelle? Là comme ailleurs, le recul est rafraîchissant! Dans un délicieux livre intitulé Qui étaient nos ancêtres? (J'ai Lu, 2002, ISBN 2-290-33363-8), Jean-Louis Beaucarnot nous rappelle fort à propos les temps où nos ancêtres maniaient la plume d'oie, le parchemin, le papier chiffon puis le papier bois. Les contraintes étaient multiples: encres aux recettes jalousement gardées qui sèchent néanmoins trop vite, plumes d'oie ou de corbeau chères, fragiles et difficiles à manier, papier coûteux, rugueux qui malmène la pointe de la plume... Comment nos ancêtres ont-ils fait nonobstant ces difficultés?

Ils ont apporté la même réponse que celle que nous pratiquons en raison de l'étroitesse ergonomique de nos claviers. Ils ont recouru

"à plusieurs techniques d'abréviation: la contraction, qui fait écrire psse pour paroisse ou sgr pour seigneur; l'apocope, qui ne conserve que la première syllabe d'un mot, comme sep. pour sépulture, enfin les notes tironiennes..... qui sont les véritables ancêtres de nos signes de sténo..."

Avons-nous perdu la langue de Molière pour autant?

Copyright or copywrong?

The copyright landscape is far from being peaceful these days. In earlier posts on this blog I have tried to shed some light on copyright in the digital age. Here is more by [email protected]: Will Online Publishing Flap Rewrite Copyright Law?

The point the Wharton experts are making is that neither side (namely publishers and Google) gets it right. Publishers are right in that Google has indeed violated current copyright rules. However the end result of the pending court case may be a thorough revision of the copyright notion to make it more suited to the digital age and to needs of end users (us for that matter).

But the train may not stop here. I like the perspective taken by Wharton School Professor Daniel Raff: "What's at stake for book publishers could be the economics underpinning the industry for the last 150 years". Indeed, the copyright debate is only the tip of the iceberg.

Worse, the iceberg is melting at a fast pace: It does not resist this radical business climate change. So the question is: Shall we struggle against digital warming (which is what the forthcoming court cases are all about) or shall we get our acts together and listen to what people really want (and not what publishers or Google want)? If you are a reader of this blog, you know my answer!

Thanks to Professor André Farber, Solvay Business School, Brussels for pointing out the info!

Quand la France défie Google: livres numériques et bibliothèques virtuelles

Je viens de lire le dernier numéro du magazine The Economist. Un article en particulier a retenu mon attention. Il est intitulé "Pulp friction". Cet article fait suite aux nombreuses informations relatant l'incursion de Google, Amazon, Microsoft et Yahoo dans le domaine du livre en ligne. Selon l'auteur de l'article:  "Internet companies are racing to get books on line, but publishers are understandably wary."

En France, nous sommes évidemment très sensibilisés à ces ambitions nord-américaines de bâtir et contrôler ce qui pourrait être la bibliothèque digitale universelle. C'est l'objet de la croisade de Jean-Noël Jeanneney. Je ne peux manquer d'être surpris devant cet engouement médiatique pour ces grandes manoeuvres au moment même où en France des dizaines de milliers d'utilisateurs utilisent quotidiennement (en silence devrais-je dire!) une bibliothèque digitale bel et bien française: cyberlibris. En l'occurrence, il ne s'agit pas seulement d'utilisateurs (étudiants, professeurs, cadres et bientôt familles) mais aussi de centaines de grandes maisons d'édition nationales et internationales (titulaires de contenu sous copyright) qui ont accepté que leurs ouvrages s'éveillent à une nouvelle vie (digitale)! La révolution a donc déjà eu lieu sous nos yeux. Néanmoins, il semble que nous préférions nous faire peur avec Google et les autres: toujours la même histoire des trains qui déraillent dont on parle et de ceux qui arrivent à l'heure dont on ne parle pas!  Il est temps de faire le point.

La première question qui vient à l'esprit est celle de l'émancipation digitale de Gutenberg. Pourquoi a-t-elle pris tant de temps alors que la musique et l'image ont pris la poudre d'escampette depuis un moment déjà. Il faut dire que le livre Gutenberg est une vraie prouesse technologique. Il combine en un seul support contenant et contenu, hardware et software diraient les informaticiens. Le contenant est un "objet technologique" admirable: il fonctionne sans pile, il peut-être transporté n'importe où, il ne craint pas les chocs. Mieux encore, il peut être annoté, il peut contenir un marque-page, il contient une table des matières et une bibliographie. Lorsqu'il se pare de ses meilleurs atours, son papier est doux au toucher, son odeur sensuelle.

Tout ceci explique que le contenu ne se soit pas émancipé de son contenant. A dire vrai, il a essayé. Souvenez-vous des prévisions de marché de l'organisme Forrester Research à propos de l'e-book et de son marché futur. On nous promettait monts et merveilles, c'est-à-dire des dollars à la pelle. Mais, lorsque l'on connaît Gutenberg, qui peut bien vouloir s'infliger le supplice de la lecture à l'écran sur un support qui n'existe pas vraiment. Peu de gens et Gutenberg l'emporte haut la main. La musique et l'image sont différents. Ils ont gagné leur émancipation, souvent violemment. Cette liberté a eu pour nom Napster, Kazaa, eDonkey, Gnutella etc... Et, malgré la résistance de l'industrie de la musique et du film, cela a marché. L'écosystème créé par Apple autour de l'iPod et de iTunes en est la preuve. Steve Jobs a montré avec son écosystème que le contenu ne voulait pas être gratuit mais qu'il voulait être libre. Là comme ailleurs, la liberté a un prix et nous sommes prêts à payer cette liberté. Souvenez vous de la prohibition de l'alcool aux Etats-Unis dans les années trente. Lorsque l'alcool est redevenu légal à un prix décent, plus personne n'avait d'alambic dans sa baignoire!

La seconde question qui vient alors à l'esprit est celle-ci: le livre est-il réellement le dernier sanctuaire?  Google, Amazon, Microsoft seraient-ils les Indiana Jones qui auraient enfin réussi à pénéter le sanctuaire? Je suis surpris par la teneur que revêtent les analyses dispensées ici et là à ce sujet. On oublie trop souvent l'utilisateur et on ne ne se préoccupe que du livre, de ses ayants-droit (les maisons d'édition) et de ceux qui aimeraient accéder (par des moyens pas toujours orthodoxes) au copyright des ayants-droit (Google et les autres). Mais, où est donc passé l'utilisateur. Est-il si peu important qu'il n'y a rien à en dire? Je pense qu'il y a là une erreur de perspective fondamentale. La bataille de l'émancipation de la musique et de l'image a été gagnée par les utilisateurs (et les pressions plus ou moins hardies qu'ils ont exercées). Il en va de même du livre. Lorsque l'on interroge les utilisateurs (ce que nous avons fait), que souhaitent-ils vraiment à propos du livre? Trois choses principales:

    - Pertinence: L'utilisateur veut pouvoir accéder aux livres dont il a besoin. Malheureusement, cette demande est loin d'être satisfaite par les circuits existants. Une librairie, si vaste soit-elle, ne peut stocker tous les livres. Très souvent, elle ne stocke que ce qui se vend. Pour passer des journées entières dans les catalogues d'éditeurs, je suis tout à la fois admiratif de la richesse de l'esprit humain et consterné que si peu en soit visible.

    - Immédiateté: L'utilisateur a besoin du contenu "maintenant", c'est-à-dire au moment où son besoin d'information s'exprime. Il ne s'agit pas d'avoir une réponse demain. L'utilisateur est prêt à payer cette instantanéité de réponse.

    - Ubiquité: L'utilisateur souhaite obtenir une réponse à ses besoins d'information où qu'il se trouve. Il est prêt à payer cette ubiquité documentaire.

    - Obliquité: Les livres que l'on lit ne sont pas forcément ceux que l'on cherchait. C'est l'effet cher à l'écrivain Umberto Eco pour lequel une bibliothèque vaut plus par les livres qu'elle contient que l'on n'a pas encore lus que par ceux que l'on a déjà lus.

Si l'on rassemble ces trois exigences à l'instar d'un portrait chinois, on découvre le format approprié à les satisfaire: il s'agit d'une bibliothèque digitale. Etymologiquement, le mot bibliothèque signifie le coffre du livre (biblion: le livre, thecke: le coffre). On voit dans cette étymologie le souci de conservation des anciens manuscrits. Dans le cas qui nous préoccupe, il s'agit d'ouvrir le coffre (digital)! Encore faut-il qu'il soit bien rempli! La condition sine qua non de son remplissage est que les éditeurs détenteurs du copyright des livres aient accepté au préalable de la faire.

Mon étonnement est grand de constater que, selon The Economist et quelques autres, les éditeurs sont frileux en la matière, qu'ils craignent la cannibalisation de leurs ventes physiques, qu'ils sont très hésitants sur la politique tarifaire à adopter pour le livre en ligne. Notre expérience témoigne exactement de l'inverse. Cette expérience n'est pas mince: nous parlons d'environ deux cents éditeurs nationaux et internationaux qui ont accepté de nous écouter et de mettre en place la bibliothèque digitale (je devrais dire les bibliothèques digitales dotées des fonctions idoines) dont les utilisateurs (plusieurs dizaines de milliers à ce jour, étudiants, professeurs, cadres et bientôt familles) ont besoin. Nos utilisateurs ne sont pas seulement français. Cyberlibris rayonne sur plus de dix pays. Parmi ceux-ci, les pays en voie de développement méritent une mention particulière. En effet, dans les débats provoqués par l'invasion des firmes américaines du Net, je suis sidéré qu'aucune mention ne soit faite à l'accès aux livres par les pays démunis. C'est un sujet important, d'autant plus important qu'il concerne des zones géographiques où le contenant Gutenberg n'est pas adapté (climat, conservation, corrosion). Nous ne prétendons pas réduire la fracture digitale. Nous sommes trop pragmatiques pour cela. Nous essayons seulement d'apporter les livres, c'est-à-dire la bibliothèque digitale et ses outils, à ceux dont la latitude géographique est malheureusement devenue une malédiction. C'est aussi une manière d'entretenir la francophonie si malmenée aujourd'hui.

Les grandes manoeuvres actuelles du livre sur Internet sont intéressantes à disséquer. Nous le faisons car après tout nous sommes les premiers concernés. Nous souhaitons néanmoins apporter un bémol: la bibliothèque virtuelle existe et elle est bel et bien française.

Peter Drucker passed away

I have just come across a very sad news. Peter Drucker has passed away at the age of 95. I got the news through Nova Spivack, Peter Drucker's grandson. For those who don't know Peter Drucker yet, Nova's post on his grandfather reveals the great scholar and man Peter Drucker was. Although I never had the chance to meet him in person, I remember receiving a signed copy of one of his book from his publisher. Sadly enough I lent the book to somebody who never returned it to me.

As a tribute to the "Renaissance man" Peter Drucker was, allow me to re-publish with some editing a post that I devoted to Peter Drucker:

Peter Drucker's intellectual production is amazing by any standard. He is a gifted observer of organizations and one of the most prolific writer on management. In a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal (Download Drucker_on_CEOs.pdf), he embraces the task of "Defining the Duties of the American CEO." Tough task indeed as the acronym these days can not only stand for "Chief Executive Officer" but also for "Chief Everything Officer", "Chief Enabling Officer" or "Chief Everything Oracle" etc...

Drucker proposes a definition of the CEO: "The CEO is the link between the Inside, i.e., "the organization", and the Outside -- society, the economy, technology, markets, customers, the media, public opinion." He then proceeds to explain what he means by Inside and Outside. "Inside, there are only costs. Results are only on the Outside." Somehow, and other things being equal, a very Coasian view of the world.

Drucker assigns the CEO the first task of defining the Meaningful Outside, which, he admits, is not an easy one. My pinch of salt here is that Drucker seems to take the set of Outsides as a given among which the CEO has to choose. Nothing in my view is less sure. Indeed, as University of Chicago Luigi Zingales has it, "the boundaries of the firm are in constant flux" (see in_search.pdf ). The economic definition of the firm differs more and more from its legal counterpart. This observation has given rise to a whole literature dealing with the firm as a nexus of contracts, implicit contracts (think of suppliers...) and corporate governance. Even the answer to the "what business are we in?" question is not enough. It is a good start but it does not tell you much about the boundaries of the firm. Drucker's view on the Inside/Outside delineation seems to be very much predicated on what IMF Raghuram G. Rajan and Luigi Zingales call the "old corporate framework":

• Rigidity: The firm was rigidly defined by the legal ownership of a large set o unique assets,
• Heavy outside ownership: The firm has to rely on outside investors to finance sizeable assets and to bear risks,
• Top-Down Management: Concentration of power at the top and legal claims over assets are the most important source of power.

But, the good old days (were they really?) are over. Now, with the paramount importance of human capital (high mobility), the financial revolution (easier access to financial means) and the technology revolution (allowing us to do things that were in the past only allowed/affordable to the Robbing Barons), power has shifted away from the top of the organization. The world is becoming more horizontal, less vertical and this has drastic implications on the way organizations are to be managed and even more importantly on the way they are going to reshape themselves.

Sadly enough we won't hear the wise comments from Peter Drucker the sage anymore. I do hope Nova has some yet to be published material from his cherished grandfather and that he will share this with us.

Pulp Emancipation: Information does not want to be free, it wants to be seen!

I am currently reading the latest issue of The Economist. One article in particular has caught my eyes: Pulp friction. It's an article dealing with the recent Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Amazon hype on e-books. As The Economist has it: "Internet companies are racing to get books on line, but publishers are understandably wary."

This is an interesting article but some clarifications are in order. First let's get back to basics. Why is it that it takes so long for books to end up on line (as a matter of fact they are already on line but The Economist and other newspapers for that matter do not seem to know it)? Indeed, music, pictures, movies are already widely available on line.

To answer the question properly one needs to carefully reconsider Gutenberg's achievement. Let's start with a very candid question. What is a book? A book is a subtle combination of content (What the author has written) and container (the physical book itself). One single entity is both at the same time the hardware and the software. The hardware part is an achievement in itself. The user can carry it anywhere, he does not need any power, he can write on it, annotate, bookmark the pages. The book has often a bibliography, an index. When the book falls down, don't worry, it is still working. Some books are almost pieces of art: quality of paper, iconography, smell etc...

All this explains why book content did not emancipate itself from its container the same way music and movies did. As a matter of fact it did try. Remember what the fellows at Forrester Research were predicting about e-books market figures. They were promissing us the moon. But who wants to read on a computer even if its a Tablet PC or a so-called e-book device? Almost nobody. Gutenberg wins by a fat margin! So much for market research. Music and movies are different. They already gained their emancipation. One can even say that more often than not they have a life of their own. Indeed, music for instance got read of its traditional container (the CD) and went on line in a quite rude manner (Napster, Kazaa etc...). And, it works. That's the way how people want to consume music. Hence a whole ecosystem has developed around music content, the most notable one these days being the iTunes and iPod ecosystem. The same is happening with movies on line and on demand.

Let's turn to the second point that is not properly covered by the news. Is the book really the last content sanctuary? And, what does all this hype around books on line mean? First, let me emphasize that, contrarily to what most press articles seem to suggest, successful experiences and business models with on line books do exist (It seems to be human nature to talk about trains that derail and not about trains that arrive on time!). Indeed, for the book to be able to emancipate itself from its traditional container, it takes a properly crafted business model that aligns interests and value added from the publisher down to the end user. This model (or the ecosystem for that matter) exists, we all know it, it is called a library. What matters for an end-user is to be able to access the relevant information precisely when and where he needs it. A few words are important here:

    - Relevant: For sure books exist that match one's information needs. The problem is to locate them and more often than not you won't find it in bookstores, even very large ones. Bookstores carry what sells fast enough (inventories, real estate etc...). Having access to a digital library powered by a proper search engine solves the problem. Publishers are happy too: They are in a position to re-monetize a (lost) relationship and they do so at a very "granular" scale.

    - When: I need the info, whatever the info, now and not tomorrow. This is when I am willing to pay and where the publisher should be able to capture this willingness to pay.

    - Where: I need the info even though I may be in a remote place: The piano shall come to me and not the other way round! The publisher shall be able to capture my willingness to pay even if I am not in a bookstore.

Well, this is what a digital library is all about and that is why it aligns readers' and publishers' interests. A digital library is where the content can indeed gain its emancipation from its container. This is where book content can be "nicely" unlocked. We see this everyday at Cyberlibris. Although I had a policy until now not to mix what we do at Cyberlibris (www.cyberlibris.com) and what I blog about, I find it timely and useful to have some exception here. Indeed, I am quite surprised when I hear or read that publishers are wary, hesitant or that they rush to be on line. Frankly, they don't need to. They are already there but, for sure, they did less noise than their music or Hollywood counterparts. Let's look at some basic facts (not to mention other on line initiatives like the Gutenberg project which mainly focusses on content without copyright):

We have roughly 200 publishers worldwide under contract. Through Cyberlibris their books are available on line, full-text and pages can be printed. Books can be annotated and enhanced by many on line functionalities. Does it really work? Well, ask the thousands and thousands of users that enjoy Cyberlibris worldwide. Does it pay a publisher to work this way? Well, ask them!

In a nutshell, do me a favor, read this.pdf (Article in French from Livres Hebdo).

Again I took the liberty of singing the corporate anthem for good reasons. Cyberlibris was started as an effort to improve opportunities to share information and knowledge, in other words not only to share the "short tail" but also the "long tail" (Hint: I have been an academic in a past life and spent fifteen years of this life sharing the bits and pieces I knew with my students and colleagues). This is our daily mantra. We tend to think that it has also become the mantra of the 200 publishers that work with us!

This is neither Pulp Fiction or Pulp Friction. This is Pulp Emancipation!

 

The" All or Nothing" society

I heard on the radio the other day that Swiss students went on strike to ask for more scholarships and less student loans. It sounds quite obvious that they would rather go for zero interest rate funding rather than for a loan with a strictly positive interest rate. Indeed, a scholarship is nothing but a fully subsidized loan. Hence what the Swiss students have been advocating is a zero cost funding topped by the right not to repay the principal of the loan. Well, I assume many of us would indeed love to be able to receive free money to fund the assets we want to invest in whatever these assets are.

What strikes me is that (far too) many people seem to think that we live in an "All or Nothing" society. Either you get what you want in full (zero cost funding for that matter) or you get nothing (namely a loan with an interest rate). But wait a minute, where has their creativity gone? Human brain is admirable precisely because it has always been able to fill the void between all and nothing. Let's take the example of the student loan again. It does not have to be zero rate or fixed rate. What if it were something where the loan installments would be indexed on some earnings measurement. When earnings would go down, installments would go down too precisely when you need it badly. When earnings would go north, installments would go north too precisely when you can afford it.

I know there are many contractual details to be fixed (may explain why the folks at My Rich Uncle don't offer the scheme anymore (?)). But the spirit is there: Use your brain to fill the void.

Last week-end, we went visiting antic shops and I was able to buy a vintage textbook dated 1900. The textbook is entitled "Textbook of Commercial Sciences" and has been written by Professor Merten of the University of Ghent. Very interesting book (we should have some of these wonderful vintage textbooks in Cyberlibris) where you can feel the author's passion for pedagogy.

Two things in particular have caught my eyes. The first one is related to the way the reader can authenticate whether he is reading a true copy or a faked one. Simple, each true copy has to carry the author's signature. The absence of the signature indicated that the copy is fake. It begs the question however of how you know the authors' true signature in the first place and how you can be sure it has not been counterfeited.

The second thing has to do with copyright and copyright enforcement. We all know the traditional formula. It usually says "All Rights Reserved".

Well here the text is rather different. It is a lot more personal. Indeed, the publisher says quite openly:

"All rights are reserved in accordance with the law. I am willing to sue anyone who would, in violation of my copyright, reproduce any theory or proof from this book, either from past editions or from the current one." The Publisher.

One cannot be clearer! Somehow I find it more "romantic" than the rather dry "All Rights Reserved".

What strikes me is that here again we are stuck in an "all or nothing" situation. Either the book is copyrighted (all) or the book is public domain (nothing: No Rights Reserved).

This is sad! What about having something that would say "Some Rights Reserved" I know that Lawrence Lessig and the folks at Creative Commons are fighting big time for this. The simple fact that they have to fight for it is again a strong evidence of the pervasiveness of the "All or Nothing" society. By the way the book by the way is an interesting creature as it blends in one entity the hardware and the software, the container and the content. Gutenberg was smart indeed!

But this obvious fact has odd consequences that we know quite well at Cyberlibris. Publishers often say that their business is to sell books. Not true! Their business is to sell content. This begs then the question of what is the best "container" to sell the said content. Sometimes Gutenberg is the winning option. Sometimes not. Again it is not all (Gutenberg) or nothing. Digital for that matter may win and that's how we make our living at Cyberlibris (not any kind of digital though: Digital without a clean and proper business model is doomed to failure).

The "All or Nothing" society is a real plague and the last thing we should do is surrender to it, an insult to our brain indeed. Next time you see or feel "All" or its mate "Nothing", watch and listen carefully there might be room for a new business. Your business!