{"id":152,"date":"2013-11-10T19:16:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T09:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=152"},"modified":"2013-11-10T19:16:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T09:16:59","slug":"writing-on-the-wall-social-media-the-first-2000-years-by-tom-standage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2013\/11\/writing-on-the-wall-social-media-the-first-2000-years-by-tom-standage\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing on the Wall: Social Media: The First 2,000 Years, by Tom Standage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that the classic media business model (widely distributed, subsidised by advertising) only took off in 1833 with the launch of the New York <i>Sun<\/i>? The <i>Sun <\/i>sold at 1\/6<sup>th<\/sup> the price of its rivals; juiced circulation with tales of men on the moon; and made its money from ads. Within five years, it was the most popular newspaper in the world.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That is the most interesting fact I learned from <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00CIR9856\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00CIR9856&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=petersacom-20\">Writing on the Wall<\/a><\/i>, the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest popular history (his previous titles include <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002STNBRK\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B002STNBRK&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=petersacom-20\"><em>A<\/em> <i>History of the World in 6 Glasses<\/i><\/a> and <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002WOD90A\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B002WOD90A&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=petersacom-20\">An Edible History of Humanity<\/a><\/i>, both of which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read and enjoyed). <i>Writing on the Wall<\/i> is really two books in one:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>1. An episodic romp through the last 2,000 years of (usually written) communication, from how Cicero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writings spread in a world of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no publishers, no copyright, and very few booksellers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153how [Martin] Luther went viral\u00e2\u20ac\u009d through the printers and pamphleteers of Germany, through the American, French and Industrial revolutions, and finally to the modern day.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>2. An argument that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153social media\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (horizontal, two-way, relatively low barriers to entry) has in fact been the norm through history, and that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153traditional\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mass media (vertical, one-way, high barriers to entry) is the aberration, brought about by the steam press and later by the economics of broadcast media.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To some extent these missions conflict; a number of the episodes in the book, such as the discussion of Tudor poetry and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153commonplace books\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (the Evernote of their day), are interesting but not really germane to the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thesis. Nonetheless, the book succeeds as popular history \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s breezy and crammed with fun trivia; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enlightening for those new to the subject (me); and, I think, it would make a good jumping-off point for further research \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there is a long bibliography as well as a source list for each chapter. Recommended as a enjoyable introductory read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that the classic media business model (widely distributed, subsidised by advertising) only took off in 1833 with the launch of the New York Sun? The Sun sold at 1\/6th the price of its rivals; juiced circulation with &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2013\/11\/writing-on-the-wall-social-media-the-first-2000-years-by-tom-standage\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}