John Miedema

Okay, things may have been a little stuffy in here lately with all my formal slow reading posts, but I’ve got another theory to offer today. My blog is just my way of thinking these things through. I count it a favour when others join the ride.

I previously posted The Leaves and the Tree: The Spectrum of Media. That piece described a continuum with digital technology on the one end and print technology on the other hand. My contention was that digital technology and its contents are the leaves — small pieces rapidly changing — and print technology and its contents are the tree — substantive extended thought fixed in place. It’s not that you don’t find substantive material in bytes or junk in print; rather, the respective technologies just work better when matched up in that way. I won’t go on. Read the post.

Today I am posting an interpolation of that theory, the spectrum of digital media. The ideas are similar but I am just looking at digital media now. I have a similar graph:

click for larger image

• Like last time, I am placing cellular technology on the far left, with text messages as its content. It’s great for dynamic information, the kind that might change while you are mobile.
• A few of may have noticed my one day stint with Twitter. Thanks for indulging me, but I didn’t care for it. For one thing, a linear list of status updates is too time consuming to follow. Twitter needs a non-linear (graphical?) interface if anyone cares to invent one. Maybe a spread of emoticons? I bet you could make a buck.
• Move toward the right is Facebook. Facebook still works for me because interface is designed to be asynchronous, i.e., it expects you to go away and come back later. You don’t miss anything. Facebook is doing a good job replacing the lighter stuff we used to do with email.
• Coming to centre, we have email. Those of you who have tried to abandon email for Twitter or IM may have noticed a problem — retrieving an old message. If managed properly with folders, email serves as a basic content management system.
• Leaning to the right, things become more fixed. Blogs run on content management software like WordPress. Drafts are written and published. Posts are linear and people can search the archives. It allows for an ongoing conversation.
• I have sometimes thought my blog is actually more of a wiki because I treat it like one. I correct posts and I delete posts. I try to distill my content until only the best remains. There is a editing processing that is something like older style publishing.
• As we move further to the right, we see more of this editorial process and increased quality and fixity. e-Journals like First Monday are peer-reviewed. e-Books are not subject to user comments. I am currently reading an e-book but I had to print it to enjoy it.
• In the previous graph, Print-On-Demand (POD) occupied dead centre. Here it occupies the far right. People use digital technology to order books, but they get them in print. In my view, POD represents the best of both worlds.

So … what? It’s just a pattern? To me, this parts the clouds of all the digital-print confusion. It makes it abundantly obvious why print is still around, and will continue to be. Digital technology aspires to print. That’s the way the creative process works, from unformed (leaves) to formed or fixed (tree). Even just in the digital spectrum, the same pattern applies! To really take advantage of both technologies, do your dirty work in digital, and draft your way toward print form so that people can really read and understand it.