{"id":50,"date":"2005-01-14T20:49:08","date_gmt":"2005-01-14T20:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=50"},"modified":"2005-01-14T20:49:08","modified_gmt":"2005-01-14T20:49:08","slug":"networked_bookbook_as_network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2005\/01\/14\/networked_bookbook_as_network\/","title":{"rendered":"networked book\/book as network"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book as Network\/Networked Book? That’s the koan I’ve been puzzling for the last few weeks. Can something made from, let’s say, hundreds of semi-anonymous contributors or commentors be considered a book? Is this what the texting generation is going to want–something a little less single-author, a little more…bloggy? The possibility makes me slightly sick and dizzy (I’m still paying student loans for a single-author oriented MFA in creative writing). At the same time it’s kind of exciting. Could, for example, my newest favorite blog Overheard in the Office<\/a> a spin off of Overheard in New York<\/a> be considered a dynamic anthology?
\nWhat about multi-player game-based narrative formats like Sims; are they the digital equivalent of networked novels? Bob recently sent me a link to an article entitled: Sims 2 hacks spread like viruses.<\/a> Apparently, hackers have infected the Sims 2 universe, messing with individual games\/narratives. About this Bob says: this seems so interesting to me if we consider it as one of the strands of future narrative where the author evolves into a god who creates a universe that people populate and mess with as people do; i.e. that the author creates a starting place for an unfolding story. Of course this has been a visible strand since the advent of computer games, especially the large multi-player ones — but for me the added bit here, that the mortals are messing with the game’s code and thus vastly increasing the scope of the game, brings the whole subject up with renewed interest.<\/i>
\nThe future book will be a networked book or a “processed book” as Joseph Esposito<\/a> calls it. To process a book,<\/i> he says, is more than simply building links to it; it also includes a modification of the act of creation, which tends to encourage the absorption of the book into a network of applications, including but not restricted to commentary.<\/i>
\nA modification of the act of creation…what, exactly, does this mean for the craft of storytelling? Is it changing utterly? And is somebody going to tell the MFA programs?
\nbtw. if you know any great examples of networked books let me know. I’m building a collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book as Network\/Networked Book? That’s the koan I’ve been puzzling for the last few weeks. Can something made from, let’s say, hundreds of semi-anonymous contributors or commentors be considered a book? Is this what the texting generation is going to want–something a little less single-author, a little more…bloggy? The possibility makes me slightly sick and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1861],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the_networked_book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}