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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Books / Teh Internets Mix-Books?

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, May 6, 2010 at 4:01 PM

Now anyone can make a book out of their favorite Wikipedia articles:

Users can create the book without leaving Wikipedia. A “create a book” button has been added in the print/export section of Wikipedia‘s left navigation sidebar that brings them to the book creator. When you browse the site, you can add articles to the book by clicking the “Add the Page” button.

Users can then arrange the order of the articles, choose a cover photo andgive the book its title and an editor‘s name. The price of the unique books depends on the number of pages and starts at $8.90. Books are ready for shipment within two working days.

While I think this could be a useful idea (there's a video further explaining the concept on the PediaPress homepage), I also (half-seriously) think we need to come up with a word for this kind of thing, because "book" is becoming way too broad a word with all the inexpensive publishing methods available today.

Comments (7) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I think the word book is fine, but I object to the use of "editor" for someone xeroxing wikipedia articles.

Posted by Karla

on May 6, 2010 at 4:10 PM

Why?

Posted by giffy on May 6, 2010 at 4:19 PM

Wikipedia articles that no longer will be updated w/ more current information or thinking? I'll be ordering myself a 230924834982039 volume collection today!

Posted by OuterCow on May 6, 2010 at 4:30 PM

#2.

Exactly...why would anyone take something flexible and free (the Web) and revert it back to something inflexible and costly (a book).

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on May 6, 2010 at 5:40 PM

@2 and 4

I presume there must be old folks who are afraid of the future, but nevertheless become aware of Wikis and their potential. Perhaps this is for them.

Alternately, perhaps this is targeted at the Nostalgia demographic, which at this point is comprised mostly of middle-20-somethings and Gen-Xers who think that the younger they were when something happened, the more empirically awesome it is. In 20 years, copies of vintage Wikipedia articles could be of great personal value to the same people who now pay exorbitant chunks of their ridiculous code-monkey salaries to buy Voltron lunchboxes and the like.

Posted by balderdash

on May 6, 2010 at 11:52 PM

@5 The thing about speculation and collection is that someone ultimately has to be willing to pay for it and keep it. I would bet that $10 would go much further invested in something more traditional that *possibly* collectible printouts of the web.

Also this entire thing goes to show how people can be involved in a forwarding thinking organization like Wikimedia and still think of boneheaded backwards ideas AND get them implemented.

Posted by Packeteer on May 7, 2010 at 10:02 AM