As with the printing press and the dotcom boom, initial frenzy and speculation obscures the lasting legacy of new technologies“Innovation,” wrote the economist William Janeway in his seminal book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, “begins with discovery and culminates in speculation.” That just about sums up 2023. The discovery was AI (as represented by ChatGPT), and the speculative bubble is what we have now, in which huge public corporations launch products that are known to “hallucinate” (yes, that’s now a technical term relating to large language models), and spend money like it’s going out of fashion on the kit needed to make even bigger ones. As I write, I see a report that next year Microsoft plans to buy 150,000 Nvidia chips – at $30,000 (£24,000) a pop. It’s a kind of madness. But when looked at it through the Janeway lens, ’twas ever thus.“The innovations that have repeatedly transformed the architecture of the market economy,” he writes, “from canals to the internet, have required massive investments to construct networks whose value in use could not be imagined at the outset of deployment.” Or, to put it more crudely, what we retrospectively regard as examples of technological progress have mostly come about through outbreaks of irrational exuberance that involved colossal waste, bankrupted investors and caused social turmoil. Bubbles, in other words. In recent times, think of the dotcom boom of the late 1990s. Or in earlier times, of the US railway... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-30 16:00:37 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 10/05/2011 - 16:07 Publishers should avoid locking themselves into any long term strategy, technology or partnerships in their digital publishing because they cannot accurately predict the next two years' developments, today's World eReading... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 27/04/2011 - 15:46 John Smith & Son deputy chairman Willie Anderson has retired after 38 years' service. Anderson began his career at the academic bookseller as a bookshop sales assistant in 1973 and was the first staff member to be... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Fri, 15/04/2011 - 11:33 Roland Philipps at John Murray has bought a book on digital written by the author Nick Harkaway, which argues that the new technologies will make us more human. Philipps bought British Commonwealth rights through Patrick Walsh... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Longtime Time Inc. executive John Squires, last seen running the magazine industry's version of Hulu, has a new gig: He's at Akademos, a Connecticut-based company that runs digital bookstores for small and mid-sized colleges. Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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WH Smiths non-executive board director John Barton has stood down after 12 years of service. He will be replaced by Jeff Harris, currently chairman of both Cookson Group plc and Filtrona plc, on 10th June 2011. W H Smith's chairman, Walker Boyd, said: "On behalf of the board, I would like to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As most publishers are scrambling to compact content (call it the Twitter effect), one company is bringing lengthy journalistic stories to digital devices. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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While librarians are pushing for access to more ebooks to satisfy demand, publishers are reconsidering how much that access should be worth. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Katie Allen Publication Date: Wed, 09/03/2011 - 08:39 John Murray has acquired a title by the c.e.o. of Google after a seven-publisher auction. M.d. Roland Phillips acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a "major" deal to Empire of the Mind: The Dawn of the Techno-Political Age.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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John P. Loughlin, EVP and GM of Hearst Magazines, kicked off DMA's Circulation Marketing Day at the Time Inc. Conference Center in New York City as keynote speaker. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Mon, 28/02/2011 - 16:12 Strong sales in its UK campus stores have helped John Smith & Son to report a sales increase of 3.1% in its latest trading results. The academic and specialist bookseller reported sales were up from £39.3m to £40.5m for... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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While it may not apply to overall advertising budgets, "big" was in for individual ad pages that ran in MPA member magazines in 2010. According to data collected by MagazineRadar, high-impact ads that ran on heavy stock were up 19 percent in 2010 and the actual ad size increased as well: the... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Organic growth will be the primary driver of the media business over the next 12 to 24 months, according to nearly 500 executives in the information, marketing services and technology sectors, according to the first annual Media Growth survey from investment banker The Jordan, Edmiston Group and... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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