As Jacques Barcia correctly asks, so what?
Had this happened two or three years ago it would have been a great idea but now, everyone has a blog, everyone has a social networking presence. I can easily spend three or four hours a day reading the feeds, answering emails, micro-blogging, actually blogging participating in discussions in the comment sections of various blogs and that is without mentioning the actual content that I produce and put up online in different places.
I put it to you that this community (which has been admirably quick in adapting to new technologies) is as connected as it can possibly get and that this connection is (aside from a few existing forums) nicely decentralised and organic.
In fact, I put it to you that this community is getting dangerously close to the saturation point. As more and more bloggers jump the fence and start doing PR, it's getting to the point where it is actually quite time consuming to wade through PR in order to find serious content. Just look at SF Signal's daily link fests; for ages they contained all of the serious content that we as a community produced every day but seemingly the SF Signal boys can't keep up and have cut back their coverage to little more that free books and interviews. If we are not careful, there will come a point where wading through profile-raising fluff will take so long that people will no longer bother to look for the serious content that goes out in blog form.
What we need is not more connection, it is more filtering and more paying venues for the serious content that many of us put out for free.
A white elephant hybrid of time sink and PR sludge-pump that pays hugely exposed writers such as Stross and Scalzi for content in the hope of sucking in our marketing eye-balls strikes me as precisely what online SF does not need, right now.
The difference is that 2 or 3 years ago, the SF blogosphere was less densely populated and less interconnected. Had tor.com launched then it would have had a seismic impact upon the way the blogosphere operated. Now it's just another site.
It may or may not be a good thing but there are plenty of sites that are better and there are plenty of other good things out there.
Posted by: Jonathan M | July 22, 2008 at 11:37 PM
I remember when Nintendo was a late comer to the game console market Atari started, but much later were Microsoft and Sony. Or we can look at the PC coming into a market full of Apples, Commodores, etc. Or how about any market, community, whatever? So what if tor.com won't be "seismic?" How do you know it won't be? Google was "just another search engine" when it hit the scene? And what's wrong with "just another site" if it's good? And if it did show up several years ago instead of now, wouldn't it be "just another site" now anyway? And why do we need new science fiction any way. There are thousands of books I haven't read that are already published and I won't have time to read in my lifetime. Besides, they won't have as much influence on me as the books I read when I was younger, at least not a "seismic" influence.
The point I'm trying to make is that the criticisms being leveled at tor.com seem ridiculously conservative in a changing world where it always makes sense to do something well even if others have already been doing it. I thought sf people welcomed new things.
Posted by: Mike Brotherton | July 23, 2008 at 12:35 AM
Come on, let's get real, okay? Scalzi showed up because Jonathan (who I don't know from Adam, as our friends the dino-riding creationists might say) basically implied that he was a money grubbing, self-promoting, family man. I mean basically that's what he said -- can we agree? And then Scalzi arrived to (rightfully, if not righteously) defend himself. In this case the Tor site might as well be a pink elephant or an invisible 7-11 as far as Scalzi's argument (or hostility, as some term it) is concerned.
Scalzi perceives himself as a big fish in a small pond, I believe. So let him. He's got a few mouths to feed and when he is dissed his survival instincts kick in. Whose wouldn't? And right now, in fact, he is a big fish, which makes his appearance here noteworthy, and also worthy of some respect, which Jonathan doesn't seem to offer him. (If I missed a subtlety or two, I apologize.)
I know that some of the movers and shakers in SFF subscribe to the "gentlebeings" aspect of fandom (and I know, I just used a dweeb term -- I want to make a quick point and get out; it might suck, but the geeks know what I mean; and it is what came to hand), while others try to take it to another level and clue us into what really matters now. Doctorow and io9 seem to be trying to reclaim SF from the old guard, which it seems Tor has its work cut out to break away from. Or to at least create the image that they have broken away from it.
I know that I might be labeled a jerk for dissing Tor. But really my little crit here will have no effect on Tor, one of Scalzi's meal tickets. As for full disclosure, I haven't explored Tor.com yet, simply because of time constraints -- although I have downloaded an ebook or two.
Too often though, what these arguments come down to is the same old "you don't know this and that," the this and that hinging on stuff that the writers write and the publishers publish. And then the poor little SF geeks who feel their argument has been trumped by the big writers and publishers feel they must go out and buy the stuff they don't know about, so they can read it and say, "Yes, I know about this and that." I find this the most sickening form of the self-promotion (and really, that's what it is) that goes on in the SFF community. It almost seems to be a spillover from academia, where if you are not aware of the research and writings of so-and-so you are left out in the cold by the "informed." But I guess such is the basis for the survival of the fittest in fandom.
And yes, Jonathan has a kernel of truth in his argument about the promotional aspect of it all, even though Scalzi (sorry John, you know I think you're great, though you do too far) has turned me off on his Whatever site with his blatant pimpage/self promo. Jonathan is right that one has to plow through what boils down to commercials to get to meaningful content. If that is Scalzi's intent -- to run commercials 75% of the time -- I'll do what I always do with commercials; turn the sound down, or turn them off completely and go to something else.
And John and Tor (i.e. Nielsen Haydens, or at least the P. part of the partnership) and anyone else my little rant may have touched: if I had thought it would have any effect at all on the fortunes of writers and publishers I would not have posted it. As someone once said in a movie (which I'm sure the encyclopedic Mr. Scalzi could identify), "I'm a little noise." I just hope that the flying monkeys -- you know the 100th, 200th, ad infinitum, that follow these folks around -- don't decide that it's time to lay their Darwinian throwdown on me. Because that stuff hurts.
Posted by: J.D. Finch | July 23, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Jonathan, you might want to reconsider one of your primary arguments based on the following. And I think you would have to admit that your "starting a web community is so three years ago" idea is a bit lacking in the convincing area in light of this:
"Facebook's Sandberg: Growth before monetization
HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Facebook's business playbook takes a page from those of the early dot-coms: build it and then figure out how to money. Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, said here in a panel interview Tuesday that Facebook's primary goal is to grow its social network. Second is monetization. 'Our focus is on growth--we believe this is the moment people are joining social networks,' Sandberg said here at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference..."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9996796-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware
Jonathan, obviously the words "this is the moment people are joining social networks" makes you rethink things a bit, yes? This story is not from three years ago, but "only yesterday" as the expression goes.
Of course it is only another person's opinion, but as that person is the CEO of Facebook, it carries some weight.
Posted by: J.D. Finch | July 23, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Hi JD :-)
I know that people ARE joining social network sites, but between facebook, twitter, blogs, forums and sites, I think that the SF community have been ahead of the curve in this particular area. Two or three years ago, I think tor.com's social networking facilities would have made it a central part of the community. Now it's just another site you need to sign up to in order to get the most out of it.
Surely even the CEO of Facebook would allow that different demographics adopt at different rates? so while it clearly is the case that "people are joining social networking sites now" is true of many people, I think the SF community have been there, got that and own the by now grey and shapeless Tshirt.
And I liked your first post. Funny :-)
Posted by: Jonathan M | July 23, 2008 at 11:11 AM
Ok, I have nothing to do with Tor. I pay them, they don't pay me. ;-)
Jonathan, anyone who claims to be an hardcore SF reader who can't find anything they like at the Baen Free Library, isn't.
Given your paranormal romance comment (and I have read some), perhaps your reading range is rather narrow and could use some therapy? :-)
Facebook and Myspace to me are pretty horrible to use (and really, really slow - not to mention ads all over the place) - already this is nicer, even with the odd bug.
They are also 100% on good stories so far.
From my point of view if they can get good writers who are novelists mostly (or well known) to write some short stories, that is excellent. Launching it with Joe and Jane Blow would be nuts.
There are plenty of lower tier venues for the nobodies to be published in and come back when they are somebody.
I can't see how the leading publisher of SF finally taking the lead and making an interesting site that isn't just a list of some of the new books with prices and 4 line blurbs is a bad thing. If it became that it would deserve a smackdown, certainly.
It absolutely does not, at the moment.
Posted by: Blue Tyson | July 24, 2008 at 03:31 AM
C) I fail to see why someone who does not identify as an SF fan would want to join a social networking site aimed at SF fans. I mean, I'm an SF fan and I can think of nothing worse...
This has already happened at Making Light and I expect it will happen at Tor.com, too. Fans talk about things other than SF and other people like to talk about those things, too.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | July 24, 2008 at 04:55 AM
Tyson -- So I need therapy for not liking paranormal romance? ha... haha... HAHAHAHAHA-HAAAAAAAAAA-HAHAHA! No.
Posted by: Jonathan M | July 24, 2008 at 08:42 AM
Marilee --
*shrug* If that's the case then it just reinforces my idea that Tor.com is arriving too late to make much of a difference.
Posted by: Jonathan M | July 24, 2008 at 08:46 AM