Top articles:
- 3/12 #sxaesthetic
The New Aesthetic goes to SXSW. - 12/11 The New Aesthetic: Waving at the Machines
Firing a laser through a cloud of ideas. - 10/11 The New Value of Text
There is an increasingly pervasive notion that other forms of media are additive to literature, that they somehow improve it. Because, you know, books are just telling stories, right? - 3/11 Seven posts about the future
Nostalgia, fiction, sharing and stories. - 17/2/11 Publishing Experiences
Why publishers should reconsider what they do. - 25/10/10 Network Realism
William Gibson and new forms of Fiction. - 5/10/10 Walter Benjamin's Aura: Open Bookmarks and the form of the eBook
The future of social reading. - 6/9/10 On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimony, and Historiography
Visualising archives and historical process.
Recent posts from the blog:
- 6/8/07 Beyond Connected: Gibson, Locative Media, Lit
I’ve been reading William Gibson‘s latest, Spook Country, and it’s been messing with my mind. I still consider myself a huge Gibson fan, although I confess I’ve found him a little cold and remote since around Idoru – the virtual space seems to be becoming more cluttered, and less thrilling as our reality comes ever more to resemble Gibson’s vision. Or at least, my reality. What has got me excited, however, is the novel’s focus on locative art, art that is bound up to physical locations through virtual technologies – virtual reality, geotagging, GPS tracking. I’ve been a... Read the rest of this post → - 1/8/07 Numbers Matter
We’re currently experiencing technical difficulties. This is very boring, as we have things to say, but in the mean time, watch this video: [Problems fixed! Video still good...] There’s a lot of really interesting and varied information in there, and you’ll be glad you did. Designed by Xplane for Shifthappens. Via Iain Tait. [Wordpress ninjas? Help required.] - 27/7/07 Open library opens its doors
The Internet Archive recently released a demo version of its new Open Library project, about which we are very excited. We’re great fans of the IA, due to the wonderful Bookmobile and the all-encompassing awesomeness of their main site, the largest collection of its kind of publicly-available text, images, audio and video, as well as the world’s largest history of the web. So when we heard they were turning their attention to paper books, we were looking forward to seeing what they came up with. Their mission statement is worth reading in full: What if... Read the rest of this post → - 17/7/07 Lit+ : Open-Sourcing the Literary Festival
Sorry it’s been quiet around here. With London Lit Plus in full swing for the last couple of weeks, and a new job, it’s been a little hectic. However, we do have one important announcement. Lit+ (litplus.com) is a new booktwo.org project: taking the London Lit Plus ethos – an open-access, distributed literary festival – and turning it into a template that anyone can use to set up their own festival. We’ll be using the same kind of tools – the power of the internet and free software – to create a resource for all.... Read the rest of this post → - 9/7/07 The sustainability of the archive
Citing the crucial need to access records on nuclear waste storage, or census returns, in five, 10 or even 100 years’ time, [Natalie Ceeney, chief executive of the National Archives] said: “This is a critical issue for us, and for UK society as a whole. We assume our personal records are secure, we expect our pensions to be paid, but anyone with a floppy disc even three or four years old is already having a hard time finding a computer that will open it.” [Source] This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and pertinent articles I’ve seen... Read the rest of this post → - 29/6/07 Creative Commons and Publishing
I haven’t talked about Creative Commons in a while. Last night I went to the London CC Salon, which turned out to be a sort of pep rally for free culture – not a bad thing. One of the films shown is embedded below (or watch it on YouTube) and makes for a pretty funky introduction to the concepts behind CC. The video is one of the many pieces of CC-licensed work included on Free Me, a DVD created to show off and promulgate the CC ethos. Eventually, it is intended to be sent to... Read the rest of this post → - 22/6/07 Friday light relief: Google Fan Fiction
Booktwo.org, always up-to-date with the latest online literary microtrends, is proud to bring you a new subgenre: Google fan fic (or should that be fear fic?). Enjoy. Google Interiors by Sandra Niehaus: I realized with a shock that George’s hat was a dense cluster of tiny cameras, forming a rounded beehive of angled, glittering eyes. “We’re from Google Interiors, a new venture sponsored by Google to make every home interior in the world searchable on the internet.” Robot Exclusion Protocol by Paul Ford: “Hi! I’m from Google. I’m a Googlebot! I will not kill you.” I saw the best minds... Read the rest of this post → - 20/6/07 Tools of Change
Despite my repeated entreaties, no one bought me a ticket for O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference, on this week. It looks like a lot of interesting people, talking about important stuff. Pleased to see that Manolis Kelaidis’ bluebook project, which I wrote about last year, has made an impactful appearance, and I suspect there’s a lot of similarly cool stuff being discussed. Places to find out more: there’s the Conference blog, Andrea Laue’s jusTaText seems to be on the ball, as does Jeff Gomez’s Print is Dead, and there’s always Jeremy’s excited... Read the rest of this post → - 18/6/07 Post- (but not un-) Interesting
Saturday was definitely Interesting. A 300-person conference which noone really knew the content of beforehand, but which lived up to its name. And there were even some booktwo-related thoughts in there. We Are What We Do were one of the first presenters, talking about their book Change The World For A Fiver. The book details 50 simple ways to change the world for a better, and it’s sold over three quarters of a million copies worldwide. That’s fantastic, but what’s almost more impressive is that they persuaded Waterstone’s to take it with a discount of only 10%.... Read the rest of this post → - 12/6/07 Hack Day & Interesting
Of interest to very few, I imagine, but I’m attending the BBC/Yahoo Hack Day at Alexandra Palace this weekend. Probably only the Sunday, as I’m also attending Interesting 2007 on the Saturday. Busy, busy, busy. Very interested in hooking up with booktwo-interested parties at either. Drop me a line if you’re coming… (Also available via the backnetwork as STML). Would love to hack something, but not much of a hacker. Additional tags: interesting2007, hackdaylondon. - 11/6/07 Whichbook.net: new ways to choose
Whichbook.net is such a good idea it’s surprising it hasn’t been shamelessly copied elsewhere. You move a set of sliders and get recommendations from UK library catalogues. The selection shown in the image above (there are many categories, but you can only set 4) got me Paul Golding’s Senseless (“Be warned, this is an extremely frank account of homosexual practices. But it is also the most moving love story full of humour, sadness and despair.”) and there’s a link to borrow it from your local library. Apparently, “books are read by one of a team of 150 people... Read the rest of this post → - 5/6/07 London Lit Plus
I love it when a plan comes together. A Sunday evening chat on Brick Lane about ways of opening up/gatecrashing/subverting the upcoming London Literature Festival has led very quickly to the creation of London Lit Plus, an open-access festival to showcase the best of London’s literary scenes: London Lit Plus (LL+) is an open festival, which means anyone can participate, and anyone can hold an event. All you have to do to be included is to submit your event, and we’ll add it to the list on this website. We want to showcase all the wonderful... Read the rest of this post → - 31/5/07 Flash, text and art
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries is the website and nom de guerre of artists Young-Hae Chang and Marc Voge, based in Seoul, South Korea. Their art takes the form of text, usually parodying the manifesto or thesis form and accompanied by jazz soundtracks, delivered either as film, or, on the web, flash movies. You can watch the films on their website (the above is from Cunnilingus in North Korea, their most recent work is Morning of the Mongoloids, for Lisboa20). The artists’ state their intentions with these web-based movies thus: “We try to break as... Read the rest of this post → - 29/5/07 New kinds of readings
A recent literary event provided a chance for an extended chat with various people about the possibilities for new types of readings. I’ve always thought they’re a bad way to appreciate lit, but they’re valuable in promoting new work, and bringing together like-minded people. What can we do about this? Readings can, of course, be very good – when the author knows how to read their work, knows their audience, and communicates with them well, as was the case last week. They can also be hideously bad – straining to hear an author struggling to bring to life... Read the rest of this post → - 28/5/07 Distributed Lit: 3:AM Brasil launches
3:AM Magazine, of which I am a co-editor as well as designer and site developer, today launched a new, Portuguese-language edition dedicated to writing, music and culture from Brazil: 3:AM Brasil. I meant to write about 3:AM when we launched the redesigned site back in January, but didn’t get round to it. It’s a great example of a new kind of literary magazine, fully distributed (editors are based in the UK, France, the Czech Republic, the US, Canada and elsewhere), constantly updated and updatable, a Myspace sensation (with 3:AM Brasil hot on its heels), publishing new... Read the rest of this post → - 25/5/07 I never met a challenge I didn’t
If things have been less busy around here for the last couple of weeks, there’s a reason: I’m moving on from my day job with the lovely Snowbooks, and pursuing other opportunities, with the consequent upheavals. Booktwo isn’t going anywhere though, and neither is Slow Fire – thanks to all who have signed up, and expect to see something in the next few weeks (I’m off to MiniCamp tonight, to see how they do things). Apologies for the self-promotion, but one of the things I’ll be doing is this: STML Studio, a design and marketing consultancy... Read the rest of this post → - 15/5/07 Papering over the cracks
With new technology comes the need to rethink certain conventions. The above is clipped from a Macmillan ebook (link), and while I don’t wish to do anyone in particular down, and the technology is young, I think it speaks to a disparity in the understanding of ebooks: they are not simply paper books, scanned page by page and uploaded – or at least, they have the potential to be so much more. Does anyone know, for instance, if there has been any research done into the difference in reading quality between pages and scrolls – that is,... Read the rest of this post → - 11/5/07 Vagina Wolf: some Friday light relief
Book piracy is no laughing matter, particularly in India, where it is estimated that US$36.5 million a year are lost by publishers (Source). With the advent of YouTube-like services such as Scribd, the problem is only going to grow. However, I fear that these ads from an Indian bookseller are unlikely to have much effect, even with their very Indian appeal to respect the authors involved. Ta, Mike. - 10/5/07 A better way to read?
The subject of reading from electronic screens is a matter of ongoing debate. Many claim people will simply never read off screens in the way that they read off paper now. Excepting e-ink-based paper, which promises to revolutionise our understanding of “the screen”, are there simple ways to improve our reading experience on the web? Despite a large amount of research in the area, there is no generally accepted ‘best’ way of reading text. Indeed, many research papers (such as this one) note that no researcher has come to a conclusive result on this. Bigger text is better,... Read the rest of this post → - 9/5/07 Bob can make your book
Cycling to work today, I saw this advertised on the side of a bus: Bob Books. Bob Books allows you to create and order books using your own text and digital photos – the examples on the website heavily emphasise personal photo albums of the baby/wedding/holiday variety. It’s a beautiful site and the downloadable software to create your own book looks and feels much the same – really intuitive and easy to use, even for novices. It’s a fairly basic service actually, and it’s certainly no threat to traditional publishers or printers, or even to new POD services like... Read the rest of this post →
For Hire
Booktwo.org is the blog of James Bridle, a book and technology specialist with specific expertise in planning and producing web and new media projects for clients in publishing and the arts. If you'd like to hire me, have a look at my CV and portfolio, and feel free to get in touch.
I am also a member of the Really Interesting Group.
You can follow me on Twitter.
Speaking Engagements:
I am available for conferences and other events. For examples, see my talks at Interesting, Playful, South by Southwest, dConstruct and Tools of Change Frankfurt.
A complete list of talks, with links, is available.
