While the book Being Digital , being atoms, is outdated, these columns develop some of these ideas. Julian Matthews interviewed Negroponte in 1996 for Malaysian Technology magazine. Why Bits Matter , on Julian's Tripod site. Two durable and relevant excerpts are The Paradox of a Book and Bits and Atoms . To get you started, here are some excerpts from these excerpts.
Many people think they are in the atom business, but really what they make are bits.
Newspapers, books, magazines. They manufacture bits but history has had them delivering atoms. Newspaper reporters send in stories from remote terminals, editors work on terminals, page layout and so on. It's all in digital form. Then at one point it's turned into ink put onto dead trees.