reeling and writhing

Facebook public status updates searchable, says TechCrunch

Your public Facebook status updates? Now publicly searchable outside Facebook

Via the helpful chaps at TPUTH.

While the debate rages on about Facebook’s attitude to privacy, and in particular the views of Mark Zuckerberg, the current situation is that an awful lot of people make their status updates public, whether they realise the full implications or not. A stark reminder of this comes today in the form of a new search engine thrown together by two developers.

FacebookSearch simply takes those public status updates and makes them searchable, outside of Facebook. The guys behind it, Peter Burns and Will Moffat, have posted a simple explanation: “This is a simple example of just how open facebook has made your information. This data is wide open, and this is one of the least scary uses that anyone will make. If nothing changes, it’s only to get worse.” There’s an interesting discussion over at Hacker News on the morality of what they are doing.

 I am going to keep my eye on what happens there and suggest any Facebookin' readers do same. TechCrunch is a very reliable source for this kind of thing.

sun comes up today on a city of books (live here on RW)

The Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas website is well and truly alive today: from Twitter there is news of the media launch this morning, and some programming is already up on the website, as well as a NAME, "The Wheeler Centre" - which is not as clunky as CBGBWI, I know - news of their opening for the masses in February, and other great things in the associated pipelines, including a Reading The City program next March.

I am hardly surprised to read that such a program is in the waters, as the State Library's Summer Read program has downsized itself for a snugger fit with local libraries (it's going online in early December, so keep an eye on that here.)

On first glance, this is a really nice looking website - I like the site map down the bottom. There will be news posted daily on the site from the "Dailies" section, which has an RSS feed? yes. You can also subscribe to Events from that page. Excuse me now, I've liveblogged a website (not the media event, I hasten to add - there are pics of that on Twitter) and I'm off to play.

*Later today - Michael Orthofer has heard the news, and spread the word, but also speaks of ANOTHER Wheeler Center, in Montana. Zut alors.

god bless publishers, each and every one

I have seen something on ReadWriteWeb about FastPencil before. This will strike fear into the hearts of some publishers, though not all.

FastPencil certainly has a catchy name - the writer covering this also mentions a company called SmashWords, which he reports is mainly making its mark in the area of distribution of DRM-free e-books. Note, too, that ReadWriteWeb content has been syndicated by the New York Times' technology section since September this year - it is a very good news feed to follow if you are interested in web trends in publishing, along with other tech news.

from my email...

For it is true, some of us live in an Internet world. And isn't "Internet Tendency" just the best name ever for a service delivering an i-Phone app from indie publishers? How 'hubbly jubbly'.

Mc Sweeney's email newsletter promises great things for its new iPhone app, The Small Chair:

No longer will T-Pain be your only salvation on trains, during lunch, and through all the other empty gaps in a day. Allow McSweeney's to fill your moments of solitude, moments of togetherness, moments of intolerable boredom.'

Und so weiter. There's a review making extravagant claims about sales of The Small Chair, here at Boldtype.

tinkering - as done as it will ever be

Well, I like the look of this for now. I tried out the whole new navbar thing on a sample blog over the past couple of weeks and I think this will help with a number of things,

one: reading too many feeds and not enough books (believe me, a wider page is a frightening thing to a linkster);

two: trying to write occasional posts in a quieter vein;

three: still reviewing the odd new title here and there, but taking time for the 370-odd articles I have bookmarked to read, as well as rereading other books, and pasting in quotations from things I like here and there;

four: Reeling and Writhing keeps its name and URL - there was a brief flirtation with a new blog, and it's over.

Thanks for your patience with my self-indulgence and hopefully temporary insanity. If I could get at the code on the 'Browse' page and put those lists into columns, believe me, I would. I won't be here quite as often in the future, but I will be here, while I am spared.

long may you run

Well, there are prizes. And then, there are prizes.

And speaking of the other kind of prize, three hearty cheers for Sleepers and Steve Amsterdam's win. Not bad for the first novel out of their blocks, is it now. Not too shabby at all.

Someone after Pav's heart.

As noted on Twitter by Jason Ensor, Damien Broderick has published a new story, here.

Want to record and send a 5 min video through Twitter? YES YOU CAN.

Congratulations are due to Jennifer Mills for a nomination for the Blake Poetry Prize. GO JEN.

What would Oscar have wanted to say about Twitter if he was here? something like this, I think.
(In other news, Fry has discovered what he calls Goldilocks Miniblogging using his iPhone.

And congratulations to Mark Rubbo and his crew for the good ship Readings' happy birthday. Many pictures here, long may she sail.

a web of writing that reads itself

Poets have embraced online communities, and Andrew Burke of Hi Spirits has pointed out this one, newly relaunched in a social network format.

I like the look of their virtual book tour, with its implications for the future of the reviewing of poetry.

the rarin' librarian (w)rap

Gracious, what a rarin' librarian she always is. I am determined to read all of Jessamyn's posts without fail from now on.
In her most recent one she gives a wrap on her speaking engagements for 2008 and provides links, as is her generous way, to her totally revamped and updated Library 2.0 presentations given recently in Albany, New York.

I'm only just starting to mooch through it all, but noticed, apropos of nothing, that her profile on GoodReads is provided here in this presentation she gave recently on Library 2.0 and Readers' Advisory services, which (among other things) gives you some idea of how this site works without having to join. (Why are so many social networking sites like that? ecch.)
I got an invitation from a writing friend to join Goodreads this week, and emailed him back, asking, really? He then confessed that the "Invite a Friend" facility there is a bit tricksy - he had sent out over 1000 invites, which annoyed him no end.

So I was wary of signing up at all - I"m now able to look inside, thanks to Jessamyn.

But of course there is much, much more in those Albany talks, especially on this "Great Big HTML page". Do consider, particularly if you want a concise comparison of the usability issues of basic Web 2.0 tools anytime (about halfway down the page.)
And for something completely different - I might just include her "Ask Mefi" widget sometime, from which I found a link to this article from the NYT.
(Just in case you were wondering what else you might need in order to become a household god/goddess at some time or other.)

Web 2.0 makeovers for Brit publishing

Although launched and hosted by the independent publishing house Canongate, Meet at the Gate is not a typical publisher's website. Yes you can search the Canongate catalogue and find out more about the excellent and diverse array of books and writers we publish, but Meet at the Gate has much broader and bigger ambitions. It's about the creation of a cultural hub, one that is totally independent in its spirit and content, a place with a particular focus on books, film, music and websites that will help guide you to the most interesting stuff around.

Not only does Canongate Publishing's blog invite the public (including the publishing industry) to contribute posts (called gateposts), but it selects blogs of note to feature every once in a while. (This I discovered via Stephen Mitchelmore at UK blog This Space, featured last week. )

Not only that, it's the front page of the whole establishment, the first hit for Canongate on Google and the publisher's public face is integrated quite well into a social network site.* Haven't seen anything else like this yet; I will have to get out a bit more, I think. A search turned up this article by Hannah Davies in The BookSeller (thanks to Book Addicts for the link), which will be my starting point for further forays. Davies notes that Canongate's site was in beta in September and due to be launched, so I would say this is still very new.

The Canongate site could do with some more navigation aids either on top or to the side. It seems to have been designed by someone who thinks most blogs are messy affairs, however most of (er, most of) our mess has some purpose or other. Because of the lean design, presently the search box on the Gateposts page of Meet At The Gate can only help you find things you already know are there, unless they're the latest or greatest posts, of course.

Keep your eyes peeled and you'll be able to browse topics and contributors from the side menu on the front page (though sadly you cannot find the posts on featured blogs easily). See, our categorised archives exist for a reason...and there could be a reason why there's no room for them here, also.

There appear to be dribs of more innovative technology drabbed here and there through the site - a Twitter feed of news and some MySpace and Facebook addresses are mentioned, but only from one page.

Otherwise it's an interesting experiment and I am reasonably impressed by their efforts to bring writers, publishers and the public together in a social network.** A fair bit of thought has gone into this, and given the prestige of bloggers in the UK (most of the prominent bloggers were sent Sony E-readers to trial in September), it would want to be pretty to attract their attention.

Now I'm off to read Maria Hyland's post - whoo hoo. Hope I can comment....nope, I am too shy. Never mind how she feels about Helen Garner being nominated for a prize alongside her - I can't even put fingers to keyboard when I have the chance to talk to MJH. I must have some favourite writers after all, and this is the test I will apply in future.

Also she's published by Text, Canongate's partners down under. So I am left wondering if the arrangement's so very different from providing a few choice sentences for a cover blurb. While not as gratingly obvious as the author blogs at Faber, some of which seem to be simply webpages put up on Blogger under industry pressure, this is a funny state of affairs. Do the authors volunteer for this activity? How does this work exactly?

(The blog of the month at Faber for November, that of Richard T. Kelly, author of a bio of Sean Penn and other works, is worthy of a post on its own on author blogging. He's doing quite a nice job with whatever it is that he thinks he's doing there. The labelling is a tad gratuitous, but he seems to like, and 'get,' blogging, which is more than can be said for the blog I found there in October, which has discreetly disappeared from the site.)

There are also snippets from Canongate's 'archives', which I assume doesn't always include sniffy correspondence like this. I am going to follow the Gate site for a bit and see what else turns up, and I will keep you informed of any progress I make.

*see Andrea's comment and ensuing discussion below for a finer distinction between social networks and the use of social media in commercial websites.

** and again.