| Created at | November 10, 2008 |
| Created by | Mike Pohjola |
| Deadline | Not set |
| Shots given | 2 |
| Reference media |
Thumbs ranking
| Jani Salomaa | E-Waltari |
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1/50% |
| Johan Löfström | Future |
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1/50% |
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The BOOK: Son of Man -team is looking for your ideas and comments. Join and show your support for BOOK: Son of Man. The future of books
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DescriptionThe Son of Man is (to my knowledge) the first serious attempt to write a book using collaborative methods. In that sense it could be called a new kind of book. What else does/could that mean? What is the future of books like? Obviously, I have no answer to these questions, and neither has anybody else. But maybe you have a hunch, an idea, a link, a suggestion, or some criticism? Here's some preliminary thoughts:
- roleplaying games published as books are not complete works until somebody takes the book, reads it, and then based on the instructions in the book, runs the roleplaying game to somebody else. - the net is full of all sorts of hypertext stories and interactive literature. How does that affect books? Or does it? If it does, is it only e-books, or paper books, as well? (The 80s Fighting Fantasy series comes to mind where you had to choose your own adventure by flipping to the appropriate pages.)
ShotsE-WaltariHow about an electronic book in which the text is the only thing that is fixed. Fans could add their notes, images, audio, video, and even messageboards and websites, to the parts of the book they want to. Kinda like Google Earth, but in a book format. It could ultimately become "a internet hub of a book". Think, for example, about an e-version of Mika Waltari's Sinuhe the Egyptian, in which fans have attached to the pages their travel photos of the book's locations, or translation of the text in hieroglyphs. Or it would allow a class to read the book and put in their assigments, links and pictures in real time. Why not?  FutureI like your idea of the spotify play list for a book or for a series of work. Little bit like High Fidelity - Nick Hornby?
Also Janis idea of implementing GoogleEarth (or GPS-noding) could be fun to play with in some ways.
I think that CD-books and mp3-books will grow very fast in popularity, listening to a book read by an actor is very good way for people on trains, and there is services arriving that stream a book to your phone (listen to many books for a monthly fee) The book does not really need to be printed on pages anymore, it could perhaps be easier to edit and reedit, like the wiki-pedia-system perhaps? I heard about some novel attempts using wikis, but dont think they became popular enough to spread. Does all new cell phones have GPS-functions? Listen to a book, with background music, and GPS-coordinates arrive sometimes, so you could walk or ride your bike there if you would like to follow the story more vividly ??? CommentsLots of great ideas Johan! Most of them would work very well with an e-book. It could automatically play the right song on the right page and so on. If you click a special link, you'd be shown the GPS coordinates of where the event takes place. I've heard of books where there's a specifically composed soundscape accompanying the book so it doesn't matter so much which part is played when. I don't know if that would work, tho, since certain parts require a certain mood. One way to include the soundtrack would be to just break the book into chapters and say each chapter has a theme song, which you can find on spotify. |
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Jani might have a point there: if they're going to bother reading a work of literature they've probably got a higher level of maturity than your average YouTube commenter, so we could expect a higher quality of comment.
I'd really like to see how this would work. I know there are a legion of douchebags on the internets, but i doubt there are quite that many in the book-reading crowd.
There should be some kind of admins, that's for sure. Maybe you could appoint the active users/commenters as admins, in the classic forum style.
Kris, true, but this would make discussion between the comments near impossible, and I think that's what really would add value...
Mike, you could have a voting system which would allow more interesting comments to rise higher up the list? I know that can be corrupted too, but it's better than nothing.
That would be really nice, Jani and Kris! It would truly make not just the writing but also reading the book a collective experience.
"I really like this character." "I don't get this part." "That's a pretty lame line." "Did this really happen?" "I've had a similar experience..."
One problem would be the thing corrupting into online newspapers' reader's commentary section in style and content. Maybe if it was continually edited, but then that would require a person working on it part-time...
I think this is a very good idea as people tend to write notes in books anyway.
I love to buy books in second-hand shops where the previous owner has added their own thoughts in the margins, and with an electronic connected book it would be possible for ALL readers to do so worldwide.
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