Utterly fantastic
Another fantastic bit of viral content from Office Max, following the storming success of Elf Yourself.
I’ll never look at the humble post-it in the same way again!
Archives - September 2008
Give us this day our daily read: Part II
I’ve posted on the advent of micro-publishing and literature in bite-sized portions before, so as a follow-up it seemed timely to observe the launch of the Twiller.
You might remember the novel in its earlier form; it had a cover, and many pages, forethought of plot, editors and agents weighing in, and, oh yes, it generally had sentences and punctuation. And, finally, some poor suckers had to take the time out of their busy days to actually read it…
…Who has time for all those niceties? They’re so first half of 2008.
In my case, I’ve for the last two months been using Twitter to write a real-time thriller. Hence: Twiller.
However, while the technology might be new, as I’ve previously observed, the microblogged novel follows in that grand tradition of serialised fiction which was the height of fashion in the Victorian era. The fact that the greatest novelists of the time (such as Dickens, Eliot & Thackeray) chose to publish their newest works of fiction in installment – which was more affordable than purchasing bound hardcover books – democratised the consumption of fiction, sparking growth in the number of people desiring to read, and also in literacy rates.
Yet other forms of Twitlit are striking out in an entirely new model – self contained content in microformats. Copyblogger’s Twitter writing contest and Smithereen’s Can you put the wit in Twitter? respectively challenged participants to tell a short story and come up with witty wordplay in 140 characters.
Will this catch on?
Well, let’s check out the winners:
Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.
The lady at The Coffee Bean laughed at my joke when I ordered a “Synonym Roll”, and asked her if there was another word to describe it.
I’m no literary critic, but I suspect longform fiction is unlikely to be killed off any time soon!
Twitter Whore
From the fabulous Lisa Nova (her McCain / Palin take off is superb), OMG LOL WTF it’s Twitter Whore!
Online identity and our personal histories
[ photo courtesy ]
Nowadays who we are – or at least how others perceive us – is increasingly defined by our online identity.
Our own personal histories are recorded on our blogs, twitter feeds, flickr streams, youtube channels, facebook pages and the like. We can create and shape our personal record, to build up a picture of the life we lead and ultimately who we are.
Of course, this isn’t a new behaviour, since people have been recording diaries, family histories and photo albums for years – it’s just the technology that’s new, making it easier than ever to record our personal histories for posterity.
But it’s also allowed us to record the history of others who went before us – who weren’t able to leave their own personal records.
In the case of me and my family, I’m thinking of Yad Vashem, the foundation which documents the history the history of the Holocaust period and seeks to preserve the memory and story of its six million victims. They’ve set up a central database to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, which features the following quotation on its front page:
“…I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger”
David Berger in his last letter, Vilna 1941
It’s an attempt to reconstruct the names and stories of those who died in the Holocaust, featuring an estimated three million names. As such, building the database is a work in progress, which they’ve opened up to contributions from the public to help them build it further. Families and friends are encouraged to submit unrecorded names, and to add any further details to existing records so that their histories may be recorded.
Most of the Lindemann family was lucky enough to have been able to flee Nazi Germany, and it’s thanks to their escape that I’m here. My great great uncle Nathan was not so lucky, and was taken to a camp in Riga for the crime of being a Jew.
But thanks to the database at Yad Vashem, we’ve been able to add to Nathan Lindemann’s listing – submitting information about who he was in life, and uploading a photo to give a face to his record.
“When the Nazis rounded us up, they took away our names and gave us numbers. What we are doing here is taking away the numbers and giving them back their names.”
Arthur Kurzweil
It’s immensely pleasing that technology has allowed us to record his history so that his identity should be recorded for posterity, and that his memory may live on.
Our online identities aren’t who we are – they’re just one window into our personalities, and who we are in life may be very different from who we are online. But for those who aren’t able to record their own histories, an online identity is pretty bloody powerful.
