Mediagazer: More on books, technology, Luddism (n+1)

n+1:

More on books, technology, Luddism — Image: Phiz. “Engraving of a rioting mob of Luddites.” 1813. From the LIFE archive at Google. — In response or in addition to the two essays this week on the future of reading and writing, we've asked the authors, as well as editor Mark Greif, to answer us two questions.

Discussion: New York Observer

Andrew Porter / Telegraph:

Licence fee for ‘wasteful’ BBC will be cut — Television viewers can soon expect to pay less for their BBC licence fee as part of the austerity drive in public spending, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, will signal on Saturday. — The broadcaster has been responsible for …

Discussion: BBC News

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

New Magazines and Books to Launch on iPad — Although I am loath to give Richard Branson any more publicity than he already gets, I was intrigued to read that Virgin is launching a new consumer magazine called Maverick, to be available exclusively for iPad and iPhone, and eventually Android.

Discussion: MediaPost, Digits and Gizmodo

Alexandra Alter / Wall Street Journal:

Luxury Lit: A Book For $75,000 — Publishers are marketing elaborate editions with all sorts of pricey features, banking on them to grow in value like rare coins or artworks — For $75,000, you can buy a piece of Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar. — Luxury publisher Kraken Opus mixed …

Discussion: New York Observer and Bookninja

The Morning News:

Paper Tigers [Roundtables] — Sports are stupid. Beautiful. Dull. Transcendent. Most of all, they're more than just games, and MATT ROBISON's assembly of sports writers, critics, freaks, and authors tell us why.

Zeke Turner / New York Observer:

Changes at The Paris Review's Poetry Desk, Lorin Stein at Play … “I think there's a good argument for having fun when you work,” said Paris Review editor Lorin Stein on the phone from his White Street offices yesterday. “Life is short! And none of us is making a banker's salary, right?”

Michael Cieply / Media Decoder:

No Future for Box-Office Exchanges — Plans to open exchanges that would trade in movie box-office futures died on Thursday, as the Senate passed financial reform legislation that includes a provision banning the proposed practice. The legislation was already passed by the House, and moved to President Obama for his signature.

Discussion: Tubefilter News

Katjusa Cisar / The Awl:

A Q&A with the Creator of “I Write Like”: “The Algorithm is Not a Rocket Science” — This week's meme is I Write Like, a new website that uses an algorithm of mysterious methodology to tell you which author's work your writing most resembles. You enter some text—"your latest blog post …

Discussion: ArtsBeat, FishbowlNY and Runnin' Scared

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:

Crowdsourcing the pain of transcribing audio — The trouble with recording interviews is that you have to transcribe them. So after one of my forays to New Haven last week, where I interviewed people in connection with a book I'm working on about community news sites …

Media Week:

Elle has a hit with Twitter feed — Elleuk.com, digital home to fashion magazine Elle, has increased its Twitter followers from 17,000 at the beginning of the year to 100,000. — Elle Collections: the biannual glossy — The results places it at least 66,000 Twitter followers above …

Elizabeth Guider / Hollywood Reporter:

Primetime to get racier after FCC ruling — VIDEO: ‘Friends With Benefits,’ others feature risque scenes — There was a particularly unbridled episode of Fox's “American Dad” in January in which Stan, well, gave “full release” to a racehorse. That shenanigan was duly hit with an FCC fine.

Discussion: Company Town and TVWeek.com

Kim Zetter / Threat Level:

Gawker Media Deals Its Way Out of iPhone Search Warrant — A California court has granted the request of local prosecutors to withdraw a controversial search warrant against an editor for the tech site Gizmodo over its scoop about the iPhone 4G. — Prosecutors reached an agreement with Thomas Nolan …

more at Techmeme »

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Geekosystem, CNET News, TUAW, SlashGear, MacRumors, PE Hub Blog, Poynter Online, The Loop, Silicon Alley Insider and Boing Boing

Judy Sims / SimsBlog:

If Newspapers Cease to Be, There Will be Two Causes of Death — Part 2 — Cause of Death #2: Failure to focus on ROI — Mainstream media organizations have spent insane amounts of time and effort trying to teach traditional sales reps to sell digital ads (give up, they will never do it well).

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk