Category Archives: Microlit

big plans for the tiny screen

Late last week, Random House announced it was making the microlit plunge, acquiring a “significant minority stake” in wireless applications developer VOCEL (AP wire story).
Says Random House Ventures president Richard Sarnoff: “You have a whole generation of consumers, perhaps more than a generation, who are never more than 10 feet from their cell phones, including when they shower. Increasingly, cell phones are becoming an appliance for entertainment and education.”
But, despite the success of cell phone novels and serials in Japan, South Korea and Germany, Sarnoff insists that tiny screens have a potential for information, but not for narrative. “The screens are inappropriate for that kind of sustained reading. That’s a `maybe, someday’ discussion. We’ll keep an eye on that area, and if something happens … we’ll certainly respond.”
So for the time being, Random House will be testing mobile phones for language instruction, test prep, and other informational services.

prod_sx1.jpg

In a related vein, textually.org, an invaluable resource for the microlit observer, recently posted about Radio Shack‘s plans to sell stand-alone virtual keyboard units the size of a “small fist.” Virtual keyboards project a regular-sized typing area on a flat surface, registering keystrokes via Bluetooth onto a smartphone or personal digital assistant (PDA). VKB, the developer of the technology, recently announced its goal of making the virtual keyboard an embedded feature in mobile devices by next year. Further suggestion that cell phones and laptops are evolving into one another.

it’s mobisodic

24_conspiracy_banner.jpg Teaming up with Verizon V Cast, a new spinoff of the popular Fox series 24 is beginning a high profile push into the fledgeling market of serialized mobile video. The show, 24 Conspiracy, will be available to subscribers in 24 sixty-second “mobisodes.” This means the entire program is 24 minutes long – not much more than an extended commercial for Fox, and a gimmick for selling more expensive phones. But perhaps this could open the floodgates for longer, more varied programming for mobile users. If HBO wants to stay on the cutting edge, they should probably open up a mobile programming division. How long before John Grisham or Dan Brown writes the first big serial blockbuster for cell phones?
Also, story in today’s NY Times..

incredible shrinking book

Nokia7200.jpg A couple morsels today on textually.org lending credence to our theory that cellphones/PDAs are the incubation niche for the eventual widespread adoption of ebooks. One on fashionable new casings Nokia is bringing out for mobile devices (re Kim’s leather-bound fantasy ebook). Another on plans by Chinese tech giant Lenovo to embed “mobile book software technology” into phones, allowing users to read fully illustrated books, as well as watch movies, listen to audio, play video games, and browse periodicals. Mobile phones are emerging, at least in China, as the ultimate mass-consumer media processor – affordable and eminently portable. And each year, notebook computers become lighter, sleeker, and easier to tote around. Are they just shrinking into palm pilots? How much serious work can you get done on a palm pilot?

email mystery novel and remix reading

Just back from the wonderful Decade of Web Design conference in Amsterdam – more to come on that soon. Catching up now on reading and turned up two interesting links on Boing Boing… First is a mystery novel that you read in email installments over a 3-week period. It’s not free – costs $7.49 – but I figured I’d give it a try. I should receive the first part tomorrow.
The other thing is an exciting collaborative writing project in Reading, UK. From their site:
“Remix Reading is an artistic project based in Reading, UK. It’s aim is to get artists (working with music, video, images and text) to come together and share their work, be inspired by each others’ work, and ultimately to create “remixes”. All material on the web site is released under a Creative Commons license, which allows you to customise your copyright so others can use, copy, and share your work as you choose.”

city chromosomes – an sms chronicle

screenshot_01.jpg Found this on textually.org. The City Chromosomes project is a sort of scrapbook of the city of Antwerp made entirely from text messages beamed in from mobile phones. Further evidence of the new genres emerging from this technology. An english version has just been published under a Creative Commons license.
Also take a look at this sister project, CityPoems, from Leeds. Posts from the Leeds project are interspersed through the english version of “Chromosomes.”
From the introduction to “City Chromosomes”:
“The city of Antwerp is full of writers. And many of these writers describe their city, often in splendid stories, novels and poems that gain a wide readership. In this way, they determine a large part of our image of the city. But what about the people who only readers, or even those who do not care for reading, what do they think of the city? And would it not be possible to persuade them to write this down?
“This was the point of departure for the City Chromosomes project. We got the idea of gathering sms messages. Nearly everybody has a mobile phone. Everybody has a moment to spare to type in a message. This was the ideal way to make the project accessible to everybody. The people of Antwerp, and anyone else with something to say about city, could submit their impressions anonymously. We established 25 text sites across the city, and the contributors could indicate with a simple code to which part of the city their message applied. By means of posters, flyers and ads, we asked people for their impressions. The only restriction: the messages should not be longer than 160 characters.”

microlit looms large

phonebook2.jpg
We’ve been hearing more and more about the phenomenon of books downloaded to a cell phone screen, so much so that even the mainstream press has been talking about a resurgence of e-books – a topic they almost entirely dropped after the efforts of Microsoft and Gemstar failed to take off a couple years back. And people are doing more than simply reading books on their phones – they can surf the web, watch soap operas and, of course, play video games as they throttle through the subway or break for lunch.
Perhaps most interesting is that while many cell phone readers are downloading conventional print texts – novels, popular nonfiction etc. – there are many more, especially in Asia, who are downloading literature that is being written exclusively for this new medium, particularly serialized novels. These stories are intended for bite-sized consumption, peppered throughout the day, week or month. And they often employ the new technology as literary device – SMS romances, mysteries spun from a single errant text message. Once again, the medium proves to be the message..
It’s hard to tell where this is going, but it’s certainly more interesting than the prefab model promoted in the first generation of e-books. There is something totally original, totally native, about this new wave of digital reading.
Take a look at this piece from yesterday’s New York Times…