Summary: Here's a question for you: is a book a thing or a place? If you said a thing, get ready for a big change. The networked book is here: the new agora/plaza/forum where author, publisher, and readers congregate to ponder, discuss, joke, enjoy, and refer. The book is now searchable, linkable, multimedia-able, commentable, annotatable, previewable, mutable, divisible, aggregatable, correlatable, syndicatable, feedable, emailable, Flickrable, deli.cio.us-able, Diggable. In fact, the book is on the brink of such a huge transformation that we wouldn't be surprised if it opened its own chain of coffee bars. Curious as we could be, The Writing Show caught up with two fellows of the Institute for the Future of the Book, Ben Vershbow and Jesse Wilbur, to find out how they are experimenting with this fascinating idea. In this fascinating look at the future, Ben and Jesse explain: * What a networked book is and why anyone would want to make one * What a networked book looks like * How networked books will change authors' roles * What new skills will be required of authors wishing to host networked books * What networked books will mean for readers * How to get readers to show up at networked books * How networked books could change publishing * How networked books might change the world as a whole * How networked books might make revenue,or not * What networked books might mean for librarians and information pros * How instructors might use networked books in the classroom. If you write or publish, you must hear this interview, for the times, they are a-changin.'
