snowdeal.org > ex machina: disintermediating technical publishers

ex machina

disintermediating technical publishers

multiple data points indicate that the tech book business in general and the xml book business in particular are in dire straights .

looking at my own behavior, i can easily pinpoint the answer. my tech book purchasing has dropped to near nothing over the years and it's due entirely to the fact that, for most tech topics most of the time, a quick one-two punch of google and google groups is "good enough". i love to support great companies like o'reilly , but there is an undeniably diminishing incremental value in many technical books.

it's a sad fact, but it's proven by the decreasing number of times that i've cracked open one of the books collecting dust on my desk and the decreasing sales of tech books that those in the technical publishing industry are reporting.

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11/01/2003 10:00:00 PM 0 comments

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