"To those claiming "Twitter" (singular mass) is "this" or "that" (insert blanket generalisation), some perspective." (Simon Sellars @ballardian on Twitter.)
Tweetping offers visualisation of global Twitter usage in real time.
Make sure you have a look next time you're awake in the dead of the night. The world is twittering away while we (do not) sleep.
I’m not the sort of person who wishes things had stayed as they were. I like Tumblr and Twitter, etc., etc., and I’m interested to see what comes next. But I do feel a little wistful from time to time for the newness of the experience of typing some stream-of-consciousness thing like this — which is not at all what I was expecting to write when I opened up WordPress — and setting it loose into the world.
-Maud Newton, on what happens after blogging.
At Cordite, Jacinta Le Plastrier rereads Ariel.
Here, Ron Silliman links to a few recordings of Sylvia reading from it.
And it's GOODBYE GOOGLE READER. I am writing this links post with the help of the nifty Newsblur, which allows me to save stories in the reader. Pretty damn fine feature. I decided it was nice enough to pay a little money to use Newsblur properly, and so far they are managing just fine with all the refugees from Google.
I have to say, John Paul Titlow at ReadWrite hits it on the head with this article about the reported July demise of Google Reader (though I can't help wondering if its death might still be somewhat exaggerated at this early stage):
Can We Trust Google?There's something unnerving about a service you use every day disappearing, even if the decision has perfectly sound business rationale behind it. It reminds us that the Web isn't ours and that the existence of these products is totally dependent on the whim of some corporation, which can pull the plug at any time. We have no say in the matter.
Shutdowns like this force people to reevaluate their relationship with their favorite places on the Web. It makes those relationships feel less secure. And as Techdirt wisely points out, it should make us all wary of relying to heavily on a single provider for our online existence.
It makes us wonder: if five years down the road Google decides that Gmail isn't making enough money, will they kill that too? Probably not. What about Google Calendar? What will be on the "spring cleaning" list in 2017? We have no way of knowing...
Things like this make Google look less humane, less compassionate. It might not have been huge, but there was a very dedicated community of users on Google Reader. Shutting the lights out on all those people, even if they do have viable alternatives, just makes it feel like Google doesn't give a damn. It seems arrogant.
Titlow makes another useful point: Google never tried to monetarise the Reader, seeming not to notice how addicted its users were and how much data it was populated with. Also he notes the reader's importance to many people he would have considered 'non-tech' - "journalists, bloggers, scientists, artists and people who prefer to follow local news and blogs via feeds".
He ends on an optimistic note, announcing his hope that something innovative will arise to take its place. There are several good links to ongoing discussions in this post, which I'll read later.
Having spent quite a few empty minutes waiting for Newsblur to load over the last few days, I do wish I felt quite so blithe about it all. The best option for me seems to be to export to a couple of services, and keep an eye on how both are performing.
(Update, March 19: Newsblur is speeding up beautifully. Looks great today. Well done, Mr Rose (link to his description of how a 'black swan' moment can pan out for a small competitor.)
It's up! as many already know, the inaugural Stella Prize longlist is out. Read all about the nominated books and their authors in more detail at the Stella Prize website.
A "digital version of passing notes in class" called Snapchat has been profiled in the New York Times. It allows messages and photos to be sent which self-destruct not long after they are opened. Via Bob Stein on if:book.
At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lili Loofbourow has mounted a case for Tolkien's Gollum having been lifted from Thelma, a novel by best-selling British female writer, Marie Corelli:
Given how extensive the parallels are between Sigurd and Gollum, it’s hard to understand how they could have gone unnoticed until now. Much as I’d like to claim credit for being an exquisitely sensitive reader, it’s almost impossible to encounter Sigurd without seeing Gollum. And yet no one, to my knowledge, has made the connection before. How is this possible, given that Corelli, Haggard, and Tolkien were all bestsellers?
Jessie Borelle reviews 99%, a five-minute podcast that punches above its weight, at the KYD blog.
Alison Flood got 99 comments on the splitting of infinitives at the Guardian blog recently. I haven't scanned them all to see if anyone else remembers Billy Liar's dictum on the matter though.
Finally, there is a very fine launch going on at Bennett's Lane, one of my favourite places, on Thursday 28th. Ilura Press is launching issue 11 of Etchings, evocatively titled Three Chords and The Truth and you are all invited for music, nibbles and readings. Go, then catch Cloud Atlas later in the evening.
It's really audacious and amazing. I think a lot of people will miss the work that is involved, the story, the Venn diagrams that are being created, the domino effect that characters have with each other in their various episodes. I know what he's doing, and this has never been done on a TV show like this. This makes Lost look like a Spalding Grey monologue. You'll have to watch each episode more than once.
Is Maud the only book blogger on Pinterest? she certainly has one of the most attractive "Books I'm Reading" pages.
There is a very fine Victorian Premier's Awards website up at the Wheeler Centre with a terrific collection of reviews on each shortlisted title in all categories. Go, be informed, and vote in the People's Choice awards.
At The Millions, Sonya Chung interviews James Salter.
From ReadWriteWeb, a video of fifthgraders in 1995 who made some interesting predictions about the future of the Web.
Pleasing to see that the first of Australian Book Review's Fireside Chats, on Jonson, Donne and Shakespeare, is booked out. So be sure to get in early for the second (scroll down at that link), on September 12: Peter Rose and Michael Farrell will read from their new collections, and hopefully chew some fat regarding Peter Porter.
(I imagine academics teaching IP law will try to sneak this one into lectures one of these days.)
A judge in the United Kingdom dealt an unusual punishment to Apple for losing a court case against Samsung last week. Apple sued Samsung in the U.K., claiming that the South Korean manufacturer's Galaxy Tab tablets copied the iPad. This, the judge said, was not true. Yesterday, the judge ruled that Apple must issue notifications on its U.K. website as well as in newspapers and magazines saying that Samsung did not copy the iPad. While the punishment may seem extreme, it may be just what the mobile device industry needs.
Apple has been fighting patent and design lawsuits against Samsung in courts across the world. The U.K. case hinged on design similarities between the iPad and the Galaxy Tab series, specifically the Galaxy Tab 10.1's back and rounded corners.
Last week, Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung did not infringe on Apple’s design because the Galaxy Tabs “are not as cool.” They “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Birss said, according to Bloomberg.
The judge's ruling yesterday is a bit of a Pyrrhic victory for Samsung. In terms of tangible benefits, the South Korean company definitely wins. Its products will remain on the market in the U.K. and Apple must do penance for the “prejudice” its lawsuit thrust upon Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs. On the other hand, Birss basically called Samsung’s tablets dweebs compared to the uber-hip iPad.
More on this at ReadWriteWeb: report by Dan Rowinski.
Newsweek decrees, via The Daily Beast website, that the geeks have inherited the earth.
They've published a Digital Power Index of 100 movers and shakers, conveniently arranged by category for those of us who enjoy such things. (Larry Page is an 'innovator' and Sergey Brin is a 'visionary'. Or vice versa.)
Something in here for everyone, I think.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.I like the look of their virtual book tour, with its implications for the future of the reviewing of poetry.
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.)
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.
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