Runs a lovely satirical piece about one possible future of the new media, dated 2048 and featuring a discussion with "Senator Glenn Reynolds."

It's long, but it's thoughtful and funny:

Rushkoff first discussed the idea that ultimately produced the Douglas Rushkoff Corporation in an interview with Mediabistro (today a unit of the trade publisher Primediabistro) in 2004. "The next stage in the freelance universe, I think," he said then, "is for those of us who have managed to generate reputations to understand that we have those reputations through the luck of timing, and to start outsourcing. The universe is so big that we could write stuff that doesn't bump up against other stuff," he said—an insight that led to the creation of "Rushkoff bureaus" on six continents. "If the industry is going to be such that it only wants to reward a few recognizable faces," he said, "then those faces have to open up their purses and give us all work. I would love to be part of a writing collective—50 or 60 of us—and there are two or three of us with big names. We can even hire actors to be the fuckers!"

Rushkoff felt that there was a limited number of names that could be sold in the writing market, but much more writing that those names could do. His original vision for writing collectives allowed writers to utilize existing names (or create fictional "authors") to sell their writing and fully realize the economic potential of those names. Ruskoff's model allowed certain people to work on marketing, others to tour, and still others to work on writing. And instead of working for the names they were using, the names worked for the writers.

So go read it, already.

Posted by: Attila at 12:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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