Great discussion at the New York Public Library. Professor Lawrence Lessig from Stanford (author of Free Culture, CODE and other laws of cyberspace) and Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail and Editor of WIRED magazine) were going to sit down and discuss “The Rise and Fall of the Blockbuster”.
I left my voice recorder and my camera at home (sitting on the desk where I would remember to bring them) so here is a brief play-by-play:
Professor Lessig is smarter than me. WAAAAAY smarter. Geometrically smarter. And he gives good deck.
Chris Anderson wrote a pretty engaging book that is keeping people talking
Synchronization is a large part of why our media sphere, content and media diet are what they are
Does the increased access cause an increase in volume of media? Are there more books being written now (think it is a 2/3 increase from 10 years ago) because there are more ways to get access to the books – more bookstore chain stores, more wall marts, Amazon and Barnes and Noble online?
In the 50’s a huge % of people watched I Love Lucy. Now the best rated show on TV has a fraction of that audience
Anderson thinks Net Neutrality wont happen because the telecoms arent that competent
One of Lessig’s previous appearances inspired a member of the audience. He went to Law School (not sure if that is a good thing).
It wasn’t really a smackdown.
Best question of the night (and paraphrasing due to too little sleep and not enough RAM):
If you write a blog about the topic of the book and spend the time and conversations and listening and engaging the audience, is having the book printed the ultimate form of DRM?
Lawrence Lessig has the greates powerpoint decks.
Hopefully Toby will throw me some of the photos from the event.
Power Laws and the Long Tail are interesting, but the conversation (pro and con) are all-the-more interesting.
Audience member asks if long tail will be the cayalyst for micropayments? (ed. note =UUUGGGHHH the concept has been tried and failed – please kill it) – Anderson feels the micropayment in this case is ATTENTION – we are paying attention, giving our attention and our time, participating or lurking in the conversation is a payoff in and of itself.
A fun evening was had by all – unfortunately I had to go to the office (4 days in a row) to finish some work
good times man, good times.