Digital Analogs: 20C Ghosts in the 21C Machine
A significant problem with the 21st Century is that many people who have seemingly entered it and embraced the technological innovations that it has brought continue to think in terms of the older media with which they are familiar.
There’s a joke about the absurdity of many patents which seem to simply add “on the internet” to a pre-existing idea and thus pretend that this is a form of innovation. This reminds me of the “in bed” suffix for fortune cookie phrases.
A good example of this is the evolution of the paper textbook to the electronic textbook. You take something that has the material constraints of the physical world and create a digital analog with as close to the same features and constraints as possible. The problem with this is that the technology allows for so much more. Instead of a paper textbook or an ebook, you can create a website that is easily searchable and indexed. It can be updated as the content changes so multiple editions don’t have to be published.
Of course, this concept gets in the way of the likewise obsolete business models of textbook publishing companies. I’d like to suggest a subscription model for this courseware site concept as a solution to the lost profits of nth edition publishing, but I doubt the publishers would allow the prices to drop as far as they should since they’ll still have a monopoly provided by the requirement of an instructor for their students to subscribe to the courseware site.
Perhaps something even more revolutionary is needed, such as open courseware, which already exists and only needs to be utilized by more instructors.
A good example of how people are utilizing 21C technology to create something new rather than just rehashing 20C concepts with newer technology is this TED talk about a multimedia ebook:
