eBook Epiphany

Tim O’Reilly’s “Tools of Change” conference this week brought together an odd assortment of messianic bombasts (you need’em), suited executives (in or out of work, hard to tell), an agent or two (what’s the real royalty on an eBook), technology wizards with the latest apps, the coolest devices and, in some cases, an extraordinary idea. The contrasts were high, with barely a mention of the economic crisis in a week that saw Harper decimated. Some parts verged on Dadaism: The cost of free. A print-on-demand Gutenberg. Reverse publishing. Who needs a publisher anyway? The book is dead; long live the book.

At a show like this, there is plenty of room for the one-off wonders, the get-rich-quick schemes, debates over digital pricing. In a corral full of backpacks and iPhone holsters, vendor pitches not-so thinly disguised as talks, the questions bounced between improving the world, ending poverty, giving access, and finding that illusive buck on the web.

And, for me, there were transcendent moments. The young open source wizard describing a new world order for his daughter. The deeply thoughtful social software designer with a presentation full of Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Dopplr, iTunes and last.fm all in the service of elegant thought. With sweeping, arching ideas about community and access (“Think service not sale.”), building relationships (author + reader + publisher), and the grace of human connection, Gavin Bell quietly reminded us that we call them (us) readers, not users.

Tower of Babel indeed, with an occasional balcony from which to survey the sky.