" 'Information Rules' (1999, Harvard Business Press, $29.95) was written at the height of the dotcom craze as an antidote to the IT industry's hyperbolic declarations and muddled thinking. Clearly, not enough people read it. Authors Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian, distinguished professors in both economics and business at Berkeley, set forth the key economic principles that underpin the exchange of information goods. This is a not a dense economics text however. It is a practical guide to the information economy written for the business leaders and MBA graduates who were to revolutionize society. As such they use clear examples, short sentences and small words. [kuro5hin.org]

Another book for my reading list.  Right now I'm finishing 'The Tipping Point' and I have 'Going Wireless' and 'Growing Up Digital' waiting in the wings.  All of these books were recommended by Jenny so I'm thinking that perhaps she should make up a summer reading list. How about it Jenny?" [Ernie the Attorney]

Well, The Shifted Reading List is my running list of titles that await the day my news aggregator breaks down. If I could pick titles Audible would make available tomorrow, they would be (in order):

1. Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson
2. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig
3. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger
4. Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives by Todd Gitlin

And that's just for starters. However, this raises an interesting point that I've been contemplating recently. MP3 audiobooks that can be downloaded and made portable are a fantastic idea, and Audible has worked out a lot of the kinks. They deserve to be the leader in this area because of their efforts.

But the publishers are still holding back and as a result, I've been disappointed with the number of current technology titles available to me from their site. Doesn't it seem like a no-brainer that the crowd paying for Audible's service would embrace all four of the titles listed above? Am I the only one that sees the potential revenue stream here?

So I want to do an experiment. It appears to me that no audio version of "Emergence" currently exists. This was true for "Fast Food Nation" when I first purchased it from Audible last year, but now the cassettes are available for purchase. Obviously the Audible experiment proved there was a market for the audio version of the title. (I'd love to see sales figures for this, but I've never been able to find them for MP3 audiobooks. If you know where to find them, please let me know!)

I'd like to see the same thing happen with "Emergence." Do distribution on the cheap through Audible, and then decide if there is a market for the physical product. If Scribner would follow up with an Audible version, I bet it would be Audible's number one download within a week. It would bring in a new revenue stream for Scribner and probably new customers for Audible.

But of course, this is out of Audible's control. It's totally up to the publisher to create an audio version. So in the spirit of the net, I've created a petition to ask Scribner (a division of Simon & Schuster) to provide an Audible version of Steven Johnson's title "Emergence." If you think this is a good idea, too, please consider signing it. If anyone besides me signs it, I'll send it in to the publisher. Don't forget, too, that a move in this direction means libraries working with Audible could circulate this title, and a company providing MP3s legally (that you purchase and own) is rewarded for their foresight.

(Oh, and I'm adding Information Rules to The Shifted Reading List.)