“It’s feels like technology, not readers, is driving the conversation about the future of publishing. “

Great points, Guy. I personally prefer thinking about why people read, why people engage with media, and why writers write, why people speak…

Power relations, creating purpose, playing a role, emotional intellectual satisfaction, alleviating existential despair …

I suppose one could find these conversations SOMEWHERE online… are they topics that belong in marketing? That I don't know.

I think you and other commentators who point out that much of new media is just “shiny new” are beginning to see that there are conflicting narratives here: New technologies can mean major paradigm shifts, major changes in culture and in the subjective human experience. In that sense, our new communication technologies SHOULD be viewed as steering the conversation. At the same time, new technologies can, and at times, should, be viewed as subservient to other, larger, more organic cultural phenomenon … looking at basic human needs, for instance, as the real driver of behavior and casting technology as a secondary character in that story.

Perhaps, like good postmodernists, we take the view that both perspectives, both stories are appropriate at various times. Sometimes technology should be the hero, at other times human emotional needs should be the hero, perhaps at other times business is the hero, or publishing is the hero, or art is the hero, or theories of rationality in economics is the hero

The point being that the story that is told is dependent on the audience, and I am glad you are pointing out that in the conversation you are leading and linking to with this blog, new shiny whistles have been cast as major characters and I'm glad you feel some discomfort with that. Keep up the good work.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by glecharles: New Post: Reflections on, Takeaways from #eBookSummit – http://loudpoet.com/QND...

That's exactly so.

Which as both plus and minus.

1) Minus, that even capitalizing at *$3M* garners no attention for a publishing startup

2) Plus, that *people* matter in the final equation