As newsgathering continues to evolve, new ways of keeping track of current events are developing. Dave Winer joins Phil and Scott to discuss how Twitter and other social networking tools are changing the way that people read and react to the news. He talks about how he followed prior major news stories and why he now has started using social networking tools as a better way.

He then discusses his work with Twitter stats and reviews what can be learned from how Twitter works. He also reviews the possible future of these tools and assesses some of the ways that information is compiled and distributed and what might be different as time goes on.

Re Barger's list playing a central role in the origins of blogging, not sure I accept that the most important thing was a list of blogs, or even a network of them. People who think the task of blogging is to pull people together miss, imho, the important thing about blogging -- that it separates people and gives each individual a place to express themselves, not subject to veto. In that way it is different from a mail list. Blogs emphasize the individual over the group.

The argument continues to this day. People who say Twitter is a conversational medium would agree with those who say Barger was the founder. I see Twitter as a publishing environment, a place to push links, a notification system. Oddly, I think Barger with his linkblog approach (which was the same as the early Scripting News or the News Page of the 24 Hours project) would agree.

Examples
Here are some PDF output examples that give an idea of what can be done with dblatex and dbcontext.
Dblatex

    * Some examples of the features supported by dblatex:
          o DocBook Examples
          o MathML Examples
          o Sources of the Examples
          o Sources + PDF Examples
    * The dblatex User Manual is a good example of a default DocBook book output rendering.
    * The User Manual in DB2LaTeX style shows the DB2LaTeX style applied to the same document.
    * The User Manual in Simple style shows a quite basic latex layout applied to the same document.
    * A W3C MathML Test Suite 2.0 Excerpt (bzipped) demonstrates the large MathML 2.0 support included by dblatex.
    * The DocBook Definitive Guide (gzipped) compiled with dblatex and the tdg-dblatex.xsl stylesheet.

Dbcontext

    * The dblatex User Manual done by dbcontext can show how dbcontext handles the same manual.

"But not all such bookstores will go to the trouble to order a book that is not distributed by the near-monopoly of Ingram Book Co. Ingram takes the same deep discount (55% off of list price) that Amazon takes, but (unlike Amazon) Ingram often returns much of what it buys in beat-up condition which the publisher has to eat plus pay the UPS cost back to its door. I once got a hardback book returned by Ingram with a razor cut the length of its spine through both the jacket and the cloth. And had to pay for its trip back to my warehouse. As far as Amazon being non-union, I doubt many bookstores are union or pay what many would consider decent wages. Not right, but friends who work in stores complain to me about this fact without telling me their specific salaries. Readers can also try to support publishers directly if their local store will not bother to order a book that Ingram does not carry. Research on-line and contact or buy from the publisher directly. Not all publishers take credit cards, a reason some would prefer to deal with Amazon. Barnes & Noble often will not order from small publishers directly, but often seem to give out their telephone numbers to those that want books from those publishers. Small Press Distribution and Consortium that distribute books for many small presses return even less to small presses that Amazon: they normally sell books to stores or chains at 40% - 55% then take half of the gross receipts of any payment and put the amount due the publisher in escrow for three months. And Consortium charges the publisher a re-stocking fee for any books stores or distributors return. In other words, it is almost impossible for a small literary publisher to survive without massive infusions of grants from NEA and foundations. Or increasingly asking for author subsidies. And this affects writers who want to be published by small publishers. The health of these publishers helps the writers they publish. The worsening condition is also caused by big publishers deciding to kill of their mid-list authors, authors who do not sell books at or above the 10,000 range. They would rather publish fewer authors selling more product (a ubiquitous hateful word now in the book trade). Print-on-demand vendors are a new avenue for authors and publishers. Or in many instances now the author is the self-publisher. A complicated situation. Bashing Amazon is not really helpful. Bash Ingram, bash the fact that mainstream literary publishing is now dominated by multi-nationals. Knopf, Random House, Farrar Straus, etc. are now owned by German companies. Or lament the fact that just released figures state that 27% of Americans do not even read one book a year. One was quoted: reading made them sleepy. Well, then tout reading for insomniacs as much healthier than sleeping pills. That should boost book sales."

These are the folks who publish lots of books of photographs on many very local topics. Sepia covers.