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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      Picking up where I left on this thread late last night, a few more points, on print itself (and for context, I probably know way more about print tech than most people since I worked at Xerox and did a couple of minor projects on the future of print)

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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      One great thing about software eating the *functions* rather than just the form of all printed material through deep digitization is that it allows us to take a fresh look at print itself, which remains an astounding manufacturing technology, even without getting to 3d.

      1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      For ~500 years we mainly used print as an idea prototyping technology because it was the cheapest in every domain from political ideology creation to game design. It still is the cheapest, but other things are getting competitive now. Like twitter for ideology prototyping.

      1 reply 2 retweets 17 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      The great thing is that now that prototyping functions are moving to other loci gradually, we can do a double take on print itself as a manufacturing medium. Print tech is really advanced now. You can print in rich color on a variety of surfaces, and put printed matter anywhere.

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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      Since I no longer work in the industry, its size and profitability no longer concern me. I don't mind if it is 1/1000th the size (as is likely) and mainly used to print board games and cards and signage and interesting packaging. That's a great set of uses.

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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      Though people outside the industry don't recognize this, already the bleeding edge tech is production on-demand high-end laser printers. There's almost nothing it can't do as well as, or even better, than offset, and very cheaply at run lengths of just dozens to hundreds.

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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      Most people think either big Heidelberg type offset printers OR home/office class laser printers when they think "print"... both breeds are gonna die out mostly. It's the production digital printer that will take over what remains of the future, diminished, but way higher tech.

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      It's not an artisan/hobby tech like letterpress. It's a high-tech sector. Right now, it's fueled almost entirely by... well direct-mail spam use cases. But I'm hoping it manages to shrink gracefully while retaining high-end production capability.

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      If you *like* paper and print, start thinking in terms of short-run, bespoke, personalized, high-quality and rich printed materials. That's why I'm very interested in things like zines, short-run indie comics, board games, card games etc. Collectively they represent the future.

      2 replies 3 retweets 16 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      I don't know the latest numbers, but right now, I'd guess the POD (print-on-demand) high end digital print industry is 80% direct mail junk stuff, 15% print-on-demand books, and 5% "long tail" use cases. I'm hoping those numbers shift to 5%, 15%, and 80%... ie reverse.

      2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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      There's problems to be solved along the way. Back when I was in the industry, though the equipment *could* do anything (rich, full-color, short-run, with variable data in each copy), the most interesting print jobs were the least profitable.

      1:07 PM - 19 Mar 2019
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        1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Mar 2019
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          What the industry *liked* to print was medium run-length (few 100 to 1000) low-area coverage (5% of paper covered with ink) with only a few colors. Going the other extreme tended to be both unprofitable and high stress on the equipment. I hope they've solved both problems.

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