Internet Publishing in a Borderless Environment: Bookworms into Butterflies

We readers and publishers have become accustomed to thinking about publishing as a process resulting in a concrete object, a book, which is distributed to and paid for by readers. Our business models have been refined with the introduction of word processing, computerized typesetting and production technologies, and desktop publishing but, until very recently and the advent of Internet publishing, the end product was just that—a physical product, a book, and recently, a CD or a disk—so the basic business models for sellin g ideas, information, and entertainment enjoyed a concrete basis.