Did California tax you guys? Because if they didn’t, I’ll be ticked
off. Second, Congress is not a place to look for “pleasure” is a place
for business(at least, that’s how is portrayed) . And I don’t know if
they wanna pay you for…well, you know, this.

Boy, you guys sure are horny people…

What is needed is the combination of these virtues with the advantage of digital distribution.

The only one doing it so far is Kindle, whose inventor, Bezos, deliberately set out to duplicate the print experience in digital form.

The ballyhooed iPad merely perpetuates the problem of “perpetual ADD.”

@Scott: Thanks for writing. I agree with you that the broad qualities I highlighted from Eggers’ talk are readily transferable to the web; we see examples of those qualities online every day (even, I like to think, at Nieman Lab!). Ultimately, I wanted to highlight Eggers’ talk not only because he’s a smart guy whose work I admire and whose ideas deserve to be heard, but also (and more so) because of the phenomenon I mentioned, though only briefly, in the post: the politicization of print as a medium. “Print” has become such a loaded term — and such a loaded idea in general — that it’s taken on a kind of platform-based partisanship: an emotional aspect, a kind of wistful defensiveness. The precise kind that Eggers highlighted in his talk.

Too often, I think, that emotional aspect leads us to conflate the qualities of print with the commodity of print — and to forget, more to the point, that those qualities aren’t unique to the medium by any stretch. While I agree with Eggers that there are some things that print can do uniquely well (call it Luddism, but it’s still hard for me to get too excited about sitting next to a warm fire, curled up with a good…e-book), I also think that the vast majority of the qualities print enthusiasts cite when praising the form are ones that can exist just as readily — and, often, more readily — on the web. We talk about platform agnosticism; but there’s something to be said for medium agnosticism, as well.

I like what Dave is trying to do; McSweeney’s is a great project. Still, I have to argue here. There is nothing that Dave observes about print that is not possible, and in fact widely pursued, online.

There are plenty of websites that do not try to distract you with “cat porn.” Most commonly the sites that try to distract you are commercial sites. If the site is a product of your passion then it is far less likely to do anything but try to engage you with its content. So the “too much distraction” objection is an objection to the business of web publishing as constituted today, not the form of the medium.

Length and thoughtfulness? One reason I was so glad to leave print for the Web in 1995 was: no more cutting from the bottom! There is *no space limit* in this medium. That can give bores a long rope, but it also lets talents flower.

Professionalism and curation? Again, there is nothing inherent to the *form* of the Web that makes it inhospitable to either of these concepts. Curation, certainly, is far easier to practice online than in print. Professionalism has been harder to pursue because the Web is still young — and also, more importantly, because the Web business remains a tough game, so it’s hard to support yourself in the style to which journalism professionals have become accustomed through web work. But nothing about the web keeps you from behaving like a professional if you happen to know what that is.

Finally, physicality and variety: Well, the Web is the greatest cornucopia of variety — and machine for serendipity — that humanity has yet been able to invent. It gives print a run for the money on this score, and print has a centuries-long lead. As for physicality–OK, there’s no winning on this one. If you simply feel “I don’t want to read online” then there’s not much of a retort possible on behalf of the Web. Here’s one anyone: screens are physical, too.