The future of news doesn't seem to lie in print on paper. I have been following the story of "EPIC 2014" because it is a typical example of how a network creates and transforms a meme into a frenzy, in EPIC's case a Flash movie, into a web phenomenon. EPIC 2014, a simple animation that purports to document the history of the news from the present to the year 2014 in which no news organization is left publishing in the face of "Googlezon" and the "Google Grid," is simply an 8 min. projection of trends and "what ifs" showing how customization, reputation rankings, computer algorithms, and P.O.V. editing could transform both how news is gathered as well as how it is presented to its users. Is it profound? Yes and no. The tech discussion communities like metafilter and slashdot discuss some of its shortcomings in terms of technology (Friendster is an economic joke, for example) and its relatively unsophisticated production values. Should you watch it? Yes. Watch it with your students and discuss it with them. It works for me like a good cartoon, or a koan, presenting complexity in simple form. McLuhan notes how we tend to view the future through the rearview mirror. Newspaper circulation figures show a steady decline. Studies of the vital 18-34 group like the one reported in this brief Wired article Wired News: Newspapers Should Really Worry point to an electronic future for those who are in the business of gathering and reporting news information. Tom Curley, CEO of A.P. gets it, noting that "The franchise is not the newspaper; it's not the broadcast; it's not even the Web site," Curley said. "The franchise is the content itself." The current buzz comes down to this: today's readers are used to being viewer/users (v/users), not simply readers. V/users want to do things with information "as they may think" to paraphrase Vannevar Bush. News is what the v/users are going to make it, as they search, link, use RSS, blog, Wiki, and talk back to the news media and each other in worldwide, networked "multi-log." Join or perish.