A Taste(Book) of the Future of Publishing
Publishers continue to fret over their precious texts appearing online, worrying that there's no business model for them if the content is already "out there". Well, take a look at this for an alternative vision of publishing in the future:TasteBook is a service that lets users take their favorite recipes from partner sites (starting with Epicurious) and create printed cookbooks that are delivered to them and/or friends. Users can add their own recipes as well, and customize the book with their name and other information. Blurb, which was recently in the news, is somewhat similar but does not focus on recipes.
I predict this will happen more and more, and publishers realise their job is about, well, publishing - producing objects with words in them. In other words, the money is in the analogue stuff - the digital you give away as promotion.