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The Road Ahead Redux
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Bill Gates. Tycoon of technology, legendary cruncher of code, all-time Hall of Fame caliber geek, master of opportunistic tunnel-vision theories. As the Mac rises in popularity among those that are not interested in being relentlessly hacked, spammed or assaulted by computer viruses, and as Microsoft’s new OS Vista does little to inspire anyone for any reason, Mr Gates has pulled an old rabbit from his hat. |
Going back to his famous print-based business book The Road Ahead, published in 1995 by Viking Canada, Mr Gates is yet again muttering about the ‘end of print’. Anything to get your name ‘in print’, I guess.
In this case, Mr Gates is speaking to the end of print newspapers, magazines and other mass circulation periodicals, since his focus is on linkability, targeted marketing and, as they say in the business, the size and effectiveness of your handheld. We’ve heard this before from Gates, of course. Back in ‘95 he claimed that cd-roms would help save the rainforest, cure cancer and discover Atlantis. The prophecy ran like this: through the miracle of Windows 95 OS print publishing would become transformed into a glorious pixillated universe of 12 point courier font and low-res jpegs. Babylon revisited! Bill knew then that all the human race wants and needs is convenience without quality.
What has changed since then? Nothing has changed. Mr Gates, whose charity and humanitarian work is impressive and admirable, is preaching his Binary Gospel to the Silicon Choir. There’s no more evidence that he’s right today than there was in 1995.
We know that publishing is changing rapidly. It’s going through an accelerated Gutenbergesque transformation that’s fueled by the technology that Mr Gates helped to create but it’s also being driven by forces that nobody can control or predict. The human imagination and creative drive and desire for meaningful, artful objects is not going to cease because we’ve discovered a new algorithm for marketing wrist watches to mining executives in Kuala Lampur.
Gates says that in five years ‘things will be even more dramatic than they are today’. Since nothing in publishing has ever been considered dramatic - the exception that proves the rule being Judith Regan - I find it hard to figure what exactly Mr Gates means by that statement. What I think he means is, “I have no idea what will happen over the next 5 years but you can bet that whatever is happening, we’ll be profiting from it.”
Posted: May 12th, 2007 under Media, Publishing, Bill Gates.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Joshua Dysart
Time: May 12, 2007, 2:01 pm
Fantastic!
Comment from Andrew Foley
Time: May 12, 2007, 11:26 pm
Part of what bothers me about those who foresee “the death of print” is the assumption that it’s going to happen overnight. Being kind of pessimistic by nature, I’m actually inclined to believe we may be looking at the beginning of the end of print as a mass medium.
I don’t think it’ll happen in five years, even if the technology is there (which I don’t think it will be, not developed to the degree and priced low enough to create a real paradigm shift in reading), and I don’t think that it’ll ever die out completely, any more than stage plays died with the rise of motion pictures.
But I can definitely envision a generation, fifty years down the line, that has technology developed to the point that it can itself be considered a beautiful, artful object, when those with creative drive will look at the same way a painter looks at a canvas, trying to find a way to express themselves/tell stories inside a fairly arbitrary framework. In fact, looking at my nephews and nieces, and the way they’ve been immersed/inundated with new technologies, I almost think it’s inevitable.
If that comes to pass, what worries me (outside of the loss of my beloved books) is the possibility that reading might be killed off along with print. Part of what I like about the Make 5 Wishes online presentation is that you (or Avril or Nettwerk or whoever) elected to retain a text element. In doing that, you’re encouraging an active audience who reads rather than a passive audience that listens. If that audience can be maintained, cultivated, and hopefully expanded, then I’d be somewhat less concerned about the possibility that my nieces and nephews will be receiving information through electronic media.
I probably shouldn’t be worried–when it comes to technology, I’ve traditionally been about as wrong about future trends as it’s possible to be. I didn’t buy CDs for years, believing they were the next 8-track. It’s one of life’s little synchronicites that the just a few days before you post about Gates’ PR I found a newspaper article about the death of the cassette tape (in Britain, at least…): http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007210213,00.html
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