Concerned about the direction of print media? Soybits, a Spanish blog about “digital publishing and its peculiarities,” created an intricate Subway-style map based on 2008 publishing trends and projecting out.
Here’s the most obvious trend: books or bookstores or writers or writing have very little to do with getting anywhere in publishing.
Also, if you don’t have some form of an electronic device, reading apparently isn’t be an option.
The Key:
eBook Readers Line (Green): ride from Kindle to Plastic Logic
eBook Shops Line (Baby Blue): ride from Amazon.com to iPhone
Business Line (Yellow): ride from Amazon.com to Google
VIP Line (Pink): ride from Jeff Bezos to Steve Jobs (Oprah and Paulo Coelho are adjacent stops on this line)
Format Line (Black): ride from Amazon to ePub
Editor Line (what seems to be the color of bile): ride from Penguin to Pan MacMillan
Conversation Line (Red): ride from Soybits to The Digitalist (if you are Northbound, you’ll hit, in order, “Future of the book,” “Print Is Dead,” “if:book,” and then “Teleread”)
Technological line (Gray): ride from DRM (or DRM) to XML
iPhone Line (Orange): ride from iPhone to iSilo
Mobile Line (Blue): ride from Android to iPhone
Service line (Peach): ride from Digital Editions to Book Army
Cool map / scary but not surprising trends / hilarious transportation pun here
