Future of Media
The book that I and Patrick Vonderau has been working on is now finallly finished, Moving Data. The iPhone and the Future of Media published by the Columbia University Press, who are currently promoting the book on their first page. It is the first book to treat the popular handheld device as a key medium for decoding modern convergence culture. Our introduction has also been published online – read it here – or download it. I also hope to publish a blog post on the CUP blog to further promote the book, all likely on the topic “iPhone 5 years – 500 000 apps”. Why? Well, I still beleive apps are the most striking thing with this “phone” – and the way the app-concept has altered the computer and media industry. And with the paradox that although Steve Jobs was a computer visonary he didn’t see this one coming at all. Nothing is mentioned for example about apps in the first iPhone commercials – watch them here on YouTube. That is, “building a phone” from external code was radically new and hardly the Nokia way. I think this example has a lot to say about the real difficulties in trying to figure out what direction the digital media landscape is actually moving.