booktwo.org

I’ve been thinking about how to create RSS feeds and achievements for pBooks, almost an API. Here’s a quick, on-the-way-to-work scheme. Think Foamee. Bkkeeper monitors your twitter feed for @bkkeeper notes - just text an ISBN and ’start’, ‘end’ or a page number to your Twitter stream. On ’start’, bkkeeper adds that ISBN to your LibraryThing account and fills in the ’started on’ date. It continues to follow your progress as you read the book, then when it gets an ‘end’ message it fills in the ‘finished on’ date. Further enhancements could include blogging dog-eared pages - although limited to Twitter’s 140-char limit, less a 13-digit ISBN.

Should really finish another bkish project before trying this one, although the two would mesh quite nicely together, eh, Tom?

OK. Back to work.

So, I’ve been meaning to write about Swotter for a while. A couple of weeks ago, it finished reading the whole of James Joyce’s Ulysses to Twitter. I think there’s something kind of amazing about that, but I’m not sure what. Final stats:

• Followers: 198 (meh)
• Updates: 23,467 (phew!)

Props to the hardcore who followed it all the way. I’m not sure what to say about this, but I’m going to have a think, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Check the Swotter page too, for more info.

In the mean time, I thought I’d do a quick round-up of lit-related action on Twitter, in no particular order:

• Booktwo (obviously)
• ArtsHub - Australian creative news
• ReadersRead - book news
• Book_Blog
• Zombie Attack - an ongoing story, told by Twitter
• TwitterLit - twittering the first lines of books
• Jenny Holzer - more art than lit, but still wonderful (and I’m told it really is her?)
• 3:AM Magazine - the best lit mag on the web (slight bias alert)
• ReadySteadyBook - one of the finest litblogs
• BAFAB - buy a friend a book
• The Book Depository - your Amazon alternative
• OUP Blog - nice that it’s actually twittering, rather than twitterfeeding
• Hesperus Press - a lovely little publisher
• Brit Lit Blogs - several of the best, rounded up
• Blogographos - group classics blog
• TwitterProse - lines from creative nonfiction
• Canongate - another small (but not very) publisher
• Snowbooks - my old employer
• TwitterFiction - Great works of fiction in 140 characters or less
• Speechification - Because. And occasionally lit-related
• Technical Writing - what it says on the tin
• Screenwriting - from writerswrite
• Quotesblog - quotes for quotation junkies
• TwitterQuote - more of the same

That’s enough for now, but I’d love to hear more. Please add your favourites in the comments and I’ll add them to the list, with a view to moving this to a dedicated page at some point. Note that it’s not really a list for individuals, unless they’re relentlessly lit-focussed.

I’ve been playing with Twitter recently (and if you’re a regular reader, feel free to join me). Initially, I thought it was annoying and intrusive - and it still is - but it’s also such a simple, open and versatile platform, that lots of interesting things can come of it. And nothing gets that much use from people unless it has something going on. Does it?

Some good examples of cool stuff made with Twitter include BBC News Feeds, Weather tracking, and Twitter Tube Updates.

So, in the interest of forcing lit into every crack of the e-ther, I present Swotter: a tool for reading books to Twitter, and through Twitter, to the world.

At the moment, Swotter is reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, line by line, to Twitter and to all booktwo’s friends via the web, IM and SMS. Visit the booktwo twitter page to see what Swotter is up to and do make friends if you’re a twitter user.

If you’d like to know more about Swotter, there’s more information here.