I've noticed a trend across many scientific fields where publications are basically irrelevant since nobody reads them. Status is conferred by high profile talks, which tend to be invited. The material discussed in high profile talks is eventually published in a journal or conference proceeding (in the case of CS) and will get citations, but ideas only spread if they are picked by the program committees. The academics who publish many low impact papers are not really relevant.
This is not applicable to a lot of fields. Generally, only CS and ancillary fields are ones I've encountered where talks and conferences are the primary "currency". In biomedicine, talks will only follow after publications, and are often intentionally paired.
