However the new media economy shakes out, however the money is made, I am most hopeful that some successful format will be found that will allow the actual writers and creators to be paid for their labor. MBAs and assorted media gurus call this the monetization question: Who makes how much and how do they make it?
MEDIA AND MAYHEM
Musings on the Crowded, Contentious Terrain of Media, Violence, and Culture
MEDIA AND MAYHEM 
I was in the middle of commenting on how hard it will be for items like the Kindle, which serve only one function, to survive with the rate cellphones and other hand-held devices are advancing – but I see Amazon is already branching out to PC’s, cellphones, and soon Macs and Blackberries with their digital book library.
It may not be too long until printed books become a thing of the past. Libraries will become museums.
What can’t you do from a cellphone these days? It’s like when Microsoft offered everything along with their OS that Apple used to charge extra for (what was the big fight over, a browser?). There’s no way to compete with that. How soon until they stop production of the TwitterPeek, next week?
Seems a bit pricey. They should follow the iTunes model and charge .99-1.99. More readers will bite.
What really upsets me is that, exlcuding the fact that yes, printing your work is costly, and it is a risk you are taking just in case it doesn’t turn out to be the best seller you hoped it would, people branch out to having their works as e-books and online short stories sometimes only for the mere fact of keeping up with what’s modern. If modernity is the fad, or the moneymaker in this case, books would then really be obsolete and colleges would soon be teaching through webcams, and instead of using textbooks, using the blackberry to read. I feel that books now have a certain taboo, just like the saying goes: “Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content” – Paul Valery.