Today O'Reilly Radar writes about changes in publishing brought about by new media. Although the particular medium being discussed isn't mentioned by name, I assume Tim is talking about the Internet. He writes, "Many of our popular series, like our programming cookbooks or the Hacks series, are actually collections of shorts, rather than full-length connected narratives."

The shift Tim sees occurring is from long-form composition to short-form collections. I'd noticed this shift in my own reading patterns lately. In the past, I had never been a big fan of short story collections, especially those by a single author. Now, I find myself downloading short stories, articles and pre-published book chapters that are made available for free on the Internet, composing my own mixed fiction/non-fiction reading sampler as I surf.

Tim predicts, "I think we'll see this phenomenon all over publishing: the rebirth of short-form content and collections, with the user in charge of the playlist." I'm not sure how playlists would work in print, but I load the material I download onto my Zaurus PDA, which I use as an e-book reader, among other things. I think that as people adopt new reading habits, this will build demand for devices that make these new styles of reading possible. That device may take the form of a dedicated e-book reader, or it could very well turn out to be something else.