Riffing off of "the other" Chris Anderson, and his TED talk on video as the great enabler for new innovation in a broad sense, "the wired" Chris Anderson promoted the maker-agenda in issue 19.04 of Wired;
"There are also so many really great websites where people can share their projects. We have Instructables and iFixit and Etsy and Make and Hack a Day and our own Adafruit. So people who used to do this stuff alone now have even more community. It used to be just freaks in garages; now it’s freaks in garages working together." - Limor Fried of Adafruit
It is the same in web development - with new bite-sized video tutorials popping up every day, from the to the point experimentation of jQuery for Designers, to the slightly more quirky Rails for ZOmbies. With the ability to chose or mix and match between the written word (and most importantly copy the code) and the video presenting it gradually and immersively (not a word, but mayhap it should be?), learning picks up pace.
The video in and of itself is also good, because it can be consumed in a more "leisurely" way that a written tutorial, giving more room for reflection since you are listening rather than reading, often leaning back rather than forward. iPad and tablet based reading slightly excluded - whilst it is a more relaxed setting and mode, for code related tutorials it is less useful since jumping into JS Bin to test is a slight hassle compared to cmd-tab'ing or even ctrl-tabbing within the browser.
"We’re a tutorial company. We’re a project company. We do video shows and tutorials and teach people, and then there’s a gift shop at the end" [p2]
The sentiment in many ways mirrors some of the discussion regarding books and authors in the digital economy; you buy the e-version of a story for $4.99 - but if you really love it and want to display it (or simply support the author, be a patron of the arts), you get the $29.99 special edition hardcover with bonus short story and illustrations. I subscribe to this view, as promoted/explained by amongst others Michael Stackpole in his blog - and as 'lived' by both up and coming authors such as Scott Sigler with his Galactic Football League series, and truly established authors such as Tracy Hickman, doing a subscription based book with his wife.
On a side note I'm still a bit peeved with Mike&Mike at the Dragonpage for not pushing the guest authors about lack of digital version (like a Kindle version of Song of the Dragon, I'd have bought it last July, and pre-ordered vol2 by now!) - especially when talking so much about new models as they did with Tracy
- ...and the sun shines brightly, 'tis a feeling of summer in the embrace of May ...
