Printweek starts a collective blog

Printweek now has a blog online. There are various views about how print and online will relate.

Matt Whip has a fairly dismissive view about the Amazon Kindle-

I know nothing, OK, so I am in no position to comment, but this is my show, and to me it looks like a Fisher Price version of the scientific calculators I used to get through Maths GCSE in the 1980s. This is a public product, like a phone, a book, a magazine. You use it in public and it makes a statement about you. The Kindle statement reads something like: "I'm with stupid", but it's ironically self-referential.

However there is a different take from Barney Cox on whether an iBook could follow an iTune

Remember the current generation of smart phones are just the beginning. The screens will get better and bigger as flexible e-papers get incorporated as a display technology. What is currently the height of geek chic, that only the diehard are willing to pay a premium and queue through the night to own, will become standard within a couple generations of technology. Once it’s there can you confidently assert that even the most ardent print lover won’t use their phone to read some things on the move over the option of seeking out and lugging around a pile of paper?

As far as I can see the Kindle is more or less a smart phone. No wifi as the coverage is patchy.

Maybe people around prepress are influenced by "geek chic". They do love their Macs in most cases. However I do remember the Apple II was very well thought of at one time and not much later many people bought a very boring box in large quantities.