It may be too soon for a “legacy” commentary on Steve Jobs. But part of Job’s legacy is that he helped popularize the “having a mobile device that can do everything, from anywhere at anytime” quickness of contemporary communication. His devices helped facilitate the cultural shift toward on-the-go, real-time media consumption. Because of him (and others), we can now hear about news, process it with others and, yes, even write a blog post about it as quickly as we want to. That I’m writing this on my Apple MacBook Pro is not meta irony as much as it is an unavoidable reminder of this man’s prodigious legacy and his brand’s revolutionary reach. How many of you who are reading this now on an Apple product?

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I saw an interesting article in Wired this morning from Clive Thompson, called "on Establishing Rules in the Videocam Age".

In this article, he talks about the new always on "sousveillance" culture.  He talks about the way in which this always on video culture can be reversed from a culture of surveillance to one where people are instead turning their cameras back around to look at those in power.

This particular development seems to mirror one of McLuhan's famous sayings in the Tetrad.  McLuhan once laid claim that all new forms of media must be asked four questions.  These four questions make up what he called the four laws of media.  They are:

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Re-entering my PhD program has caused me to think much about technology.  Two years ago, when I stopped my program, technology and Web 2.0 were at one place.  They have obviously continued to develop rapidly, and are now quite different than they were.

Issues of privacy are no longer as important or highlighted as they once were.  Below are two videos put out on youtube that illustrate the tension between public and private.  The first video is a humorous (yet poignant) looks at what happens when information that we readily display on facebook is asked of people in person.

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Every April I read The Great Gatsby. The tradition started the April of my junior year at Wheaton College, when I took my copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece (the most perfect American novel, IMHO) to Adams Park, laid down on the newly warm grass and read through the whole book in one sunny afternoon. It was bliss.

This year, as an experiment, I decided to buy Gatsby on Kindle and read it on my iPad. I’ve hitherto been loathe to enter the world of e-books, but I figured I better not knock it until I’ve tried it. A few weeks ago at Biola’s Imagination Summit, a discussion on “the future of books” with Moe Girkins (former CEO of Zondervan) and Jason Illian (CEO of e-book upstart ReThink Books) got me thinking about the topic. E-books certainly seem to be the future. Physical books, Borders, libraries… all of that will likely become outmoded. But is that a good thing?

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“In a world where publishing is effortless, the decision to publish something isn’t terribly momentous.”

In the academic world, when publishing something, one must correctly cite sources, doing thorough research, proofread carefully, edit, proofread again, wordsmith some more, and then finally publish.  There may even be some more editing and proofreading and editing in that process.

In contrast, in the blogging world, one must publish quickly, often, and still write with a fair amount of wisdom and yet brevity, to keep people interested.  I often times struggle with the tension of wanting to put out a blog more frequently, and getting ideas a bit more solidified in my head prior to doing so.  (You may notice this in the infrequency of my posts).

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Reading is an experience. It involves all your senses. Where you read, when you read, why you read is all part of the context that makes reading meaningful. So the idea of reading books digitally, isn’t simply a cost issue. It requires each of us to rethink how, when, where and why we read in light of this new medium.

As we rethink these various factors, you have to ask ourselves a few questions:

• What are you losing by reading digitally and, conversely, what are you gaining?
• How will it affect your reading patterns? Will it cause you to read more or will it decrease the amount you tend to read?
• Will eReading change what you read? Will you read more fiction or will you tend to focus our eReading on work/study/etc?
• Will eReading change where you read? Will you read more because the books are more portable?
• Will eBooks help you make better use of resource materials such as cook books, how-to books, Bible commentaries and studies, etc?

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Dear friends who like video gaming,

I wanted to write you all because I am feeling a little nervous.  The latest Unreal tech demo came out showcasing what will be the next level of graphics and technology in videogames.  More accurately than ever, it blurs the line between virtual and actual reality.  Amazing lighting, facial and clothing textures, and animation give it the graphical quality of contemporary computer animated cartoons.  It depicts people who look and move with more photo-realism than ever before. It is also brutally violent.

In the trailer, a half man/half alien character sees an elderly person being beaten in the middle of the street by guards that look like a cross between a Storm Trooper and a character from Portal.  He watches the scene from above before jumping from the heights, slamming to the ground and dispatching of the several guards, with a final slow mo bullet through the head of one of the characters, complete with blood splattering onto the “camera” and sound effects in tow.

By Jon Hirst

Our team at Novo Ink is very excited to share some news with the Conversant Life community. This morning we launched the enhanced eBook version of Crazy Love by Francis Chan. This is a collaborative project with Francis’ publisher David C. Cook.

To find out more about the book click here.

We are very excited about this enhanced eBook because it takes a unique approach to this new medium. As you know we have been blogging about how eBooks can be tools of incarnational ministry among us. That lens is how we look at projects like this.

So when we sat down with David C. Cook and brainstormed this project, our goal was to create an intentional and incarnational resource that allows you to jump into the idea along with Francis Chan and learn new things as you hear from him and interact with the many other resources. And we are so excited with how the team at Cook brought the project together!

The tendency out there is to create a book with “extras” but that is simply more information overload. Instead we believe an enhanced eBook needs to be an organic experience where audio, video, and support web resources make the reading experience richer and more meaningful.

Our hope is that as you read this enhanced book, you will connect with the author and his passion, but more importantly, that you will get new insights into how you can grow in your love for Jesus.

In order to model that, I will be reading the enhanced book, one chapter a week, and blogging on conversant life about the total experience and what I am learning. I challenge you to join me in that journey and read along. I would love to hear your comments as we read it together.

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We have been introduced to eBooks over the past several years thanks to Amazon.  And in the past 6 months, it seems like eBooks are talked about everywhere.  The momentum in the past six months has really increased around eBooks.  Until recently, eBooks have always been in the form of text on screen, which is simple, and a lot like reading from a print book.  In the past year, we have started to see a lot of readers being introduced to the market, some of them with cool features like color, sharing, multi-platform capability, etc.  These added features have helped to enhance the experience of reading digitally.

In the past few months, the enhanced, or interactive, eBook has gained tremendous interest and momentum.  The new enhanced eBook is one that incorporates video, audio, animations, interactivity, resource links, etc. right into the digital book.  It is kind of like what we have experienced on good websites the past several years…only now it is in your book.  Publishers are starting to see that an enhanced eBook can really add to the reading experience if done right.  At present, most of the enhanced eBooks coming to market have a video or two embedded in them, and maybe some outside links.  Often these are added to an existing product as an add-on to make the book “enhanced.”  In other instances, some existing products, originally written with the future in mind, are being turned into enhanced eBooks where the video, audio and resource links are a natural extension of the actual book.  That is where the enhanced eBook reading experience really shines, and we will all start to see more of these types of enhanced eBooks coming to market. 

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