The Digital Idea Trail

I just bought JD Lasica's book after reading the endnotes for each chapter. I've never done that before. Like any self-absorbed blogger - and the best bloggers are all self-absorbed types - I've got my name set up in a few search strings linked to the blogosphere. I get a lot of articles about golf, British politics, and the early days of IBM - but the other Toms are a subject for another post; back to me.

Clicked on a link and there in JD's endnotes was a citation to an article that Chervokas and I wrote for Kurt Andersen's late [Inside] magazine back in '01 headlined: "How the Net Could Nuke TV:
Video File-Sharing." Ah yes, ahead of the curve as always. Now, I knew about JD's book already because I read his personal blog all the time, and at some point, I probably would have ordered it. But seeing that citation ... well ... it kindled the urge to click the ol' Amazon one-click.

So it's very smart marketing by JD, who essentially wrote the book in public amongst his peers. And it's proof that, in my view, a more open diital rights policy (JD offers a mini version for free, along with endnotes, software tools, a blog, other source material and discussion) and actually increase sales. That the book itself is about digital rights and the future of media makes the irony all that much sweeter: the author is proving his case with his own digital rights. Call it walking the talk. Oh before I forget, here's the book blurb (see, it's working!) along with JD's Amazon link; feel free to buy it:

Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation is a new book that offers first-person accounts of how the personal media revolution will impact movies, music, computing, television and games.

Comments

[JD Lasica]

Hey, Tom, thanks for the mention. I was wondering whether endnote entries like "Watson, Tom" would turn up a positive result on Google Alerts or the like.

Yes, you were indeed ahead of your time, only now IPTV and on-demand media are becoming a reality rather than just a glimmer in a couple of starry-eyed kids' irises.