How might we get to a new model of mathematical publishing? | Gowers's Weblog

"I am more interested in whether mathematicians really need journal articles at all, now that we have the internet....I think that journals still have a vital role to play, even though the internet exists. However, like many people, I do not think it is at all obvious that they will continue to have a vital role to play, so I’d like to discuss two questions. 1. If we didn’t have journals, then what might we have instead? 2. How could the change from journals to whatever replaces them actually take place? ...What I think could work is something like a cross between the arXiv, a social networking site, Amazon book reviews, and Mathoverflow...."