How annoying to hear yet another self proclaimed "future" guru arrogantly imply that all those skeptical of his vision will be left behind. Mr Stein can claim to have "seen the future", but what a big wet kiss to Apple he gave us! The iPad is not ruling the world. I don't want anyone to show up in margins when I'm reading, not my boss, nor targeted ads. I do enough multitasking, and when I read, it's to retain the information, not be distracted out of it. Don't forget that iPad leaves behind a toxic carbon footprint, which is not good for my future.

The collaborative writing model won't produce anymore writers like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, London, or Woolf, because no corporation should own the mysterious process that creates their works. While Mr Stein is looking for a way to help tech firms turn more profits, I'll resist reading expensive crap on soon to be obsolete devices. No need to buy into some blogger's vision of the future, just because he says so.

While i realize that this part of the piece was only semi-serious, I was disappointed to hear that the iPhone was the perfect device for reading because its display though tiny was bright and crisp and it is small enough to be always handy in a way the Kindle or other e-readers aren't. Then the iPad appears at the same size or bigger, and suddenly becomes the perfect e-reader. I am left to infer that this is because the iPad is a swiss army knife of a device and somehow it is therefore the better reader because it can be used for more than reading. Is it somehow also now irrelevant that the size of the iPad would make it as cumbersome as the kindle or other devices to carry everywhere?

Can we get an On the Media show on corporate cultism?

I hope I don't sound like a troll but this guy was really annoying and seemed a lot more dedicated to promoting himself than saying anything interesting.. Also, his comment that he has no doubt that there is a PhD student out there right now who grew up in MySpace.. Really? Please tell him to find this 10 year old graduate student. I would love to meet him or her.

Don't invite this guy back! He's a weiner

This notion of collaborative writing is encouraging. The community college where I work is talking about setting up some "pods" for students to do what may be called "c_o_o_laboration" but we will have to see. Some authors who wrote only one single book, like Harper Lee, could gain new audience and new daylight removed by the film adaptations (again like Harper Lee's character Calpurnia being dwarfed by the Hollywood version of her employer Atticus). A new school year starts in August. Should be fun. Nice story - nice job.