Front Row Seat at the Revolution

Abstract

When Internet service provider AOL announced it would acquire media conglomerate Time-Warner, Dave Pell, publisher of Davenetics, an online news service for Web professionals, crowed, “The people who still (even to this day) think the net is just about hype are wrong. The debate is over. We are lucky enough to have a front row seat at this revolution.” Our culture is in the process of changing its whole definition of words like media and publishing. Commercial publishing giants now flow into new forms at dizzying speed. We hear a lot about a new “internet Darwinism”, with predictions that only a few large “electronic content providers” will survive. This talk raises troubling questions for small journal publishers like the Seismological Society of America (SSA). SSA leaders have faced electronic publishing with considerable vision and foresight. If it is difficult for commercial publishers to plan an electronic future, it is even more difficult for nonprofit scholarly societies. Venture capital is not available to fund expensive mistakes. Although I still occasionally hear from a Society member that it is “trivial and straightforward” to publish on the Web, most now …