french revolution | Filome sharers have read the following articles about "french revolution" | www.filome.com filome.com http://www.filome.com/key/french revolution You're viewing shares 1-6 of 6 total shares for the keyword french revolution This is a keyword feed for "french revolution" from Filome read and shared items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword feeds for posts that are by shared with Google Reader users visit http://filome.com. en-us Copyright for these items belong to their original publishers. No filome, google reader, shared items, community knowledge organizer This is the keyword feed for "french revolution" from my read items in Google Reader. This is the keyword feed for "french revolution" from my read items in Google Reader. http://www.filome.com/images/feed_image.jpg french revolution | Filome sharers have read the following articles about "french revolution" | www.filome.com http://www.filome.com/key/french revolution This is a keyword feed for "french revolution" from Filome read and shared items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword feeds for posts that are by shared with Google Reader users visit http://filome.com. http://www.filome.com filome beta Birth of the Illuminati http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/L2QPhOg9WUo/birth-of-the-illumin-1.html Shared item Boing Boing
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Shared by Martha
An anthology of writings on high weirdness & secret history? How did I not know of this before?
In DarkLore Volume II, an anthology of writings on high weirdness and secret history, Mike Jay lays out the birth of the Illuminati conspiracy at the end of the 18th century. The Daily Grail has just published the article, which tells how the modern myth (?) began with a society floundering to understand the French Revolution. From "Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy:"
At the beginning of 1797, John Robison was a man with a solid and long-standing reputation in the British scientific establishment. He had been Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University for over twenty years, an authority on mathematics and optics, and had recently been appointed senior scientific contributor on the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to which he would eventually contribute over a thousand pages of articles. Yet by the end of the year, his professional reputation had been eclipsed by a sensational book that vastly outsold anything he had previously written, and whose shockwaves would continue to reverberate long after his scientific work had been forgotten. Its title was Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, and it launched on the English-speaking public the enduring theory that a vast conspiracy, masterminded by a covert Masonic cell known as the Illuminati, was in the process of subverting all the cherished institutions of the civilised world and co-opting them into instruments of its secret and godless plan: the tyranny of the masses under the invisible control of unknown superiors, and a new era of darkness over all'.

The first edition of Proofs of a Conspiracy sold out within days, and within a year it had been republished many times, not only in Edinburgh but in London, Dublin and New York. Robison had hit a nerve by offering an answer, plausible to many, to the great questions of the day: what had caused the French Revolution, and had there been any plan behind its bloody and tumultuous progress?

Many had located the roots of the revolution in the ideas of Enlightenment figures such as Voltaire, Diderot and D'Alembert, who had exalted reason and progress over authority and tradition; but none of these mostly aristocratic philosophes had advocated a revolution of the masses, and indeed several of them had ended their lives on the guillotine. In the early 1790s, it had been possible to believe that the power-hungry lawyers and journalists of the Jacobin Club had whipped up the Paris mob into their destructive frenzy as a means to their own ends, but by 1794 Danton, Robespierre and the rest of the Jacobin leaders had followed their victims to the guillotine: how could they have been the puppet-masters when they had had their own strings so brutally cut? What Robison was proposing in the densely-argued and meticulously documented pages of Proofs of a Conspiracy was that all these agents of revolution had been pawns in a much bigger game, whose ambitions were only just beginning to make themselves visible.

"Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy" (Daily Grail)

DarkLore Volume II (Amazon)



conspiracy revolution illuminati robison birth conspiracy revolution illuminati robison birth john robison illuminati conspiracy darklore volume french revolution daily grail secret history ]]>Boing Boing
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An anthology of writings on high weirdness & secret history? How did I not know of this before?
In DarkLore Volume II, an anthology of writings on high weirdness and secret history, Mike Jay lays out the birth of the Illuminati conspiracy at the end of the 18th century. The Daily Grail has just published the article, which tells how the modern myth (?) began with a society floundering to understand the French Revolution. From "Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy:"
At the beginning of 1797, John Robison was a man with a solid and long-standing reputation in the British scientific establishment. He had been Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University for over twenty years, an authority on mathematics and optics, and had recently been appointed senior scientific contributor on the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to which he would eventually contribute over a thousand pages of articles. Yet by the end of the year, his professional reputation had been eclipsed by a sensational book that vastly outsold anything he had previously written, and whose shockwaves would continue to reverberate long after his scientific work had been forgotten. Its title was Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, and it launched on the English-speaking public the enduring theory that a vast conspiracy, masterminded by a covert Masonic cell known as the Illuminati, was in the process of subverting all the cherished institutions of the civilised world and co-opting them into instruments of its secret and godless plan: the tyranny of the masses under the invisible control of unknown superiors, and a new era of darkness over all'.

The first edition of Proofs of a Conspiracy sold out within days, and within a year it had been republished many times, not only in Edinburgh but in London, Dublin and New York. Robison had hit a nerve by offering an answer, plausible to many, to the great questions of the day: what had caused the French Revolution, and had there been any plan behind its bloody and tumultuous progress?

Many had located the roots of the revolution in the ideas of Enlightenment figures such as Voltaire, Diderot and D'Alembert, who had exalted reason and progress over authority and tradition; but none of these mostly aristocratic philosophes had advocated a revolution of the masses, and indeed several of them had ended their lives on the guillotine. In the early 1790s, it had been possible to believe that the power-hungry lawyers and journalists of the Jacobin Club had whipped up the Paris mob into their destructive frenzy as a means to their own ends, but by 1794 Danton, Robespierre and the rest of the Jacobin leaders had followed their victims to the guillotine: how could they have been the puppet-masters when they had had their own strings so brutally cut? What Robison was proposing in the densely-argued and meticulously documented pages of Proofs of a Conspiracy was that all these agents of revolution had been pawns in a much bigger game, whose ambitions were only just beginning to make themselves visible.

"Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy" (Daily Grail)

DarkLore Volume II (Amazon)



conspiracy revolution illuminati robison birth conspiracy revolution illuminati robison birth john robison illuminati conspiracy darklore volume french revolution daily grail secret history ]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:31:11 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,1 Unusual and Marvelous Maps, Part 2 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/LMgp8nZ_0mM/unusual-and-marvelous-maps-part-2.html Shared item Dark Roasted Blend
First shared by - Alex
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"QUANTUM SHOT" #635
Link - article by Simon Rose


More Sea Monsters, Alternate Histories and - a Genuine "Road to Success" (Accept No Substitutes!)

I've always loved maps and had great fun researching and writing the first unusual and marvelous maps article last year. Here we take a look at some other cartographic curiosities from around the world, from the height of the Age of Discovery right up to the present day.

Keith Thompson created this caricature map of Europe on the eve of the First World War in 1914 for Scott Westerfeld's 2009 graphic novel Leviathan:


(image credit: Keith Thompson)

When much of the world had yet to be mapped, many illustrations of the world's still mysterious oceans featured the weird and wonderful creatures that supposedly lived there. This chart showing sea monsters dates from 1550:


(image credit: http://www.raremaps.com)

And here we see a sea monster off the North African coast near Sicily:


(image via)

On this 1570 map of Asia, we see a curiously shaped Japan and a Pacific Ocean inhabited by mermaids and strange sea creatures:


(image credit: University of Washington Special Collections)

Here's another vintage map of South East Asia from the mid seventeenth century:



(image via)

This decorative map of the North Pole was created by the renowned cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1623:


(image via)

Compare it to this map, detailing the competing territorial claims in the Arctic in the present day, as countries bordering the North Pole jockey for position as the ice steadily retreats:


(image via)

At the other end of the earth, this 1570 map shows the supposed great southern continent of Terra Australis Incognita. The map even shows land still imagined to be discovered in the far north:


(image via)

And have you ever wondered what Antarctica might look if it was free of ice? Here's just one person's opinion of how the great southern landmass might appear devoid of the ice sheet:


(image via)

On this fascinating language map of Europe, you can see just how closely, or not, national borders coincide with the language spoken by the local inhabitants - click here to see the full-size version.

In an earlier era, foreign governments often ruled a variety of different nationalities. Here we see the distribution of races in perhaps the most well known multi-national entity, the Habsburg Empire of Austria Hungary, in 1911:


(image via)

The German speaking peoples of Europe of course were all once part of the Holy Roman Empire, famously said to be neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Just look at the multitude of individual states shown here in Holy Roman Empire of 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution - click here to see the full version:


(image via)

And how about an empire straddling the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe? Here we see the mighty Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, around 1580 - click here.

Appearing in my earlier article, Flags of Forgotten Countries, was Gran Colombia, the nation that comprised much of northern South America and parts of Central America, from 1819 to 1831. As the map shows, Gran Colombia included present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, plus parts of Guyana, Peru and Brazil - click here to see the full version.

This fascinating and extremely colourful map shows the various states of the US flying the flags of countries with an equal population:


(image via)


Striking Comparisons

We sometimes forget that Australia is a continent. Here we see just exactly how sizeable the land down under is when compared to Western Europe:


(image via)

Here Australia is compared to a number of other countries, including the United States:


(image via)

This interesting map similarly reminds us just how large the continent of Africa really is, by superimposing some of the world's largest countries:


(image via)

Africa also unfortunately figures prominently in this map showing the world distribution of doctors per inhabitants.


(image via)


Fanciful Figures Inside Maps

This curious map of Scotland, shown as a Scotsman, dates from 1869 (below left):


(images via 1, 2)

The earlier one of Ireland as Lady Hibernia from 1795 (above right) is by Robert Dighton, a well-known eighteenth century painter of portraits and caricatures.

This magnificently decorative map depicts The Netherlands and Belgium as a lion. At the time this was created, in 1617, the two counties were united as one nation, although the Spanish Empire ruled the area:


(image via)

The Victorian British cartographer Lillian Lancaster drew this map depicting the American election of 1880:


(image via)

This Adidas map of Europe is a bit more up to date, commemorating the Euro 2008 Soccer championship.


(image via)

The alternate history genre has produced its fair share of fanciful maps in the past and no doubt will continue to do so. Here's an alternative map of the USA, based on a Russian professor's prediction of just how the USA will one day splinter into several pieces:


(image via)

The Allegorical Map for the "Road to Success"

This is the Victorian Road to Success which is still relevant to our day; if you follow the good advice contained in this graphic depiction of the Grand Way to Glory, you'll be well ahead everybody (who might get stuck, for example in the Beer Gardens of Bohemianism, or take indefinite vacation in a "Know-It-All Hotel") -


(image via 1 and 2)

Click here to enlarge for details... gotta love this "Hot Air" air balloon...

I hope you've enjoyed our journey through the curiosities of cartography. Until next time...

READ THE FIRST PART HERE ->

Simon Rose is the author of science fiction and fantasy novels for children, including The Alchemist's Portrait, The Sorcerer's Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic's Tomb and The Doomsday Mask.

Permanent Link... ...+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook



image via map empire europe image empire europe world countries click north maps shows image via image credit present day map shows holy roman roman empire gran colombia north pole 1570 map sea monsters keith thompson marvelous maps decorative map holy roman empire ]]>Dark Roasted Blend
First shared by - Alex
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

"QUANTUM SHOT" #635
Link - article by Simon Rose


More Sea Monsters, Alternate Histories and - a Genuine "Road to Success" (Accept No Substitutes!)

I've always loved maps and had great fun researching and writing the first unusual and marvelous maps article last year. Here we take a look at some other cartographic curiosities from around the world, from the height of the Age of Discovery right up to the present day.

Keith Thompson created this caricature map of Europe on the eve of the First World War in 1914 for Scott Westerfeld's 2009 graphic novel Leviathan:


(image credit: Keith Thompson)

When much of the world had yet to be mapped, many illustrations of the world's still mysterious oceans featured the weird and wonderful creatures that supposedly lived there. This chart showing sea monsters dates from 1550:


(image credit: http://www.raremaps.com)

And here we see a sea monster off the North African coast near Sicily:


(image via)

On this 1570 map of Asia, we see a curiously shaped Japan and a Pacific Ocean inhabited by mermaids and strange sea creatures:


(image credit: University of Washington Special Collections)

Here's another vintage map of South East Asia from the mid seventeenth century:



(image via)

This decorative map of the North Pole was created by the renowned cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1623:


(image via)

Compare it to this map, detailing the competing territorial claims in the Arctic in the present day, as countries bordering the North Pole jockey for position as the ice steadily retreats:


(image via)

At the other end of the earth, this 1570 map shows the supposed great southern continent of Terra Australis Incognita. The map even shows land still imagined to be discovered in the far north:


(image via)

And have you ever wondered what Antarctica might look if it was free of ice? Here's just one person's opinion of how the great southern landmass might appear devoid of the ice sheet:


(image via)

On this fascinating language map of Europe, you can see just how closely, or not, national borders coincide with the language spoken by the local inhabitants - click here to see the full-size version.

In an earlier era, foreign governments often ruled a variety of different nationalities. Here we see the distribution of races in perhaps the most well known multi-national entity, the Habsburg Empire of Austria Hungary, in 1911:


(image via)

The German speaking peoples of Europe of course were all once part of the Holy Roman Empire, famously said to be neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Just look at the multitude of individual states shown here in Holy Roman Empire of 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution - click here to see the full version:


(image via)

And how about an empire straddling the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe? Here we see the mighty Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, around 1580 - click here.

Appearing in my earlier article, Flags of Forgotten Countries, was Gran Colombia, the nation that comprised much of northern South America and parts of Central America, from 1819 to 1831. As the map shows, Gran Colombia included present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, plus parts of Guyana, Peru and Brazil - click here to see the full version.

This fascinating and extremely colourful map shows the various states of the US flying the flags of countries with an equal population:


(image via)


Striking Comparisons

We sometimes forget that Australia is a continent. Here we see just exactly how sizeable the land down under is when compared to Western Europe:


(image via)

Here Australia is compared to a number of other countries, including the United States:


(image via)

This interesting map similarly reminds us just how large the continent of Africa really is, by superimposing some of the world's largest countries:


(image via)

Africa also unfortunately figures prominently in this map showing the world distribution of doctors per inhabitants.


(image via)


Fanciful Figures Inside Maps

This curious map of Scotland, shown as a Scotsman, dates from 1869 (below left):


(images via 1, 2)

The earlier one of Ireland as Lady Hibernia from 1795 (above right) is by Robert Dighton, a well-known eighteenth century painter of portraits and caricatures.

This magnificently decorative map depicts The Netherlands and Belgium as a lion. At the time this was created, in 1617, the two counties were united as one nation, although the Spanish Empire ruled the area:


(image via)

The Victorian British cartographer Lillian Lancaster drew this map depicting the American election of 1880:


(image via)

This Adidas map of Europe is a bit more up to date, commemorating the Euro 2008 Soccer championship.


(image via)

The alternate history genre has produced its fair share of fanciful maps in the past and no doubt will continue to do so. Here's an alternative map of the USA, based on a Russian professor's prediction of just how the USA will one day splinter into several pieces:


(image via)

The Allegorical Map for the "Road to Success"

This is the Victorian Road to Success which is still relevant to our day; if you follow the good advice contained in this graphic depiction of the Grand Way to Glory, you'll be well ahead everybody (who might get stuck, for example in the Beer Gardens of Bohemianism, or take indefinite vacation in a "Know-It-All Hotel") -


(image via 1 and 2)

Click here to enlarge for details... gotta love this "Hot Air" air balloon...

I hope you've enjoyed our journey through the curiosities of cartography. Until next time...

READ THE FIRST PART HERE ->

Simon Rose is the author of science fiction and fantasy novels for children, including The Alchemist's Portrait, The Sorcerer's Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic's Tomb and The Doomsday Mask.

Permanent Link... ...+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook



image via map empire europe image empire europe world countries click north maps shows image via image credit present day map shows holy roman roman empire gran colombia north pole 1570 map sea monsters keith thompson marvelous maps decorative map holy roman empire ]]> Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:16:35 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,2 "A" is for Avenue http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Newgeography/~3/Bb20et2lYJI/001371-a-avenue Shared item Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
First shared by - Ted_Louie
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Pity poor Matamoras, PA, population 2,600, located on the Delaware River where Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey all come together. The town has only two named streets: Delaware Drive (parallel to the river), and Pennsylvania Ave. (perpendicular).

Other streets parallel to the river are numbered: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, up to 10th. The avenues, perpendicular to the river, start with Avenue A in the north, and continue to Avenue S, in the south. Pennsylvania Ave., the main drag, is between K and L.

What a boring little town!

For another egregious example, consider Springfield, OR. The main street, imaginatively named Main Street, runs E-W, between South A Street and A Street. The other names are predictable: B Street, C Street, andwell, you get the idea. And, surprise, surprise, the N-S streets are numbered, from 1st all the way up to 75th Street (it seems there are no avenues in Springfield). Now Springfield, with nearly 60,000 people, does have a few more named streets than Matamoras (K Street has been renamed Centennial Blvd.), but not many.

Where does this sad state of affairs come from? I will guess it started in Washington, DC, where Pierre Charles L'Enfant was imported from France to design the city. He brought with him the malign influence of the French Revolution: an irrational belief in hyper-rationality. And so Washington is on a strict grid, with lettered streets running E-W, and numbered streets N-S.

Superimposed on this grid are streets named for states, most famously Pennsylvania Ave. To a very crude approximation, the States form a separate, looser grid offset by 30 degrees, though in reality they go every which way. Allegedly they provide grand vistas, and I guess they do. You'd have to tear down the Treasury Department to get the full effect.

In my view, the lettered grid streets are boring, and the state streets are unpredictable. Thus Washington is simultaneously hyper-rational and nearly unnavigable the worst of both worlds. Beyond the federal triangle it isn't a very attractive city, either.

So now consider New York City, or specifically, Manhattan. This appears even worse than Washington, what with all roads numbered. N-S roads (parallel to the primary axis of the island) are called Avenues, and are numbered from 1st Avenue in the east, the 12th Avenue along the Hudson. The E-W roads (along the island's minor axis) are also numbered, designated Streets, starting with 1st Street (just north of Houston), and ending at 220th Street, at the northern tip of the island. Thus the corner of 33rd St. and 3rd Ave. is a perfectly legitimate address, as could be 8th Ave. and 88th St.

But it is even worse than this. The widest point of the island is on the Lower East Side, and hence there is a chunk of real estate east of First Avenue. Not wanting to give tenement houses imaginative addresses, the Avenues are lettered: Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C and Avenue D. (When I first visited New York as an adult in the 1970's, this area was too dangerous to walk around even during the day. In recent years I've explored the Lower East Side on foot with no problems and great enjoyment.)

But unlike Matamoras, or Springfield, or even Washington, New York City works. Why?

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that platted the city of New York turns out to be a work of great genius. The key insight is asymmetry, or more accurately, anisotropy. Or, in colloquial terms that any New Yorker will understand, the difference between long blocks and short blocks.

For in Matamoras, Springfield, or Washington (or Chicago, or almost any other city you can name), the blocks are square. But not in New York there the blocks are rectangular at a ratio of approximately 3 to 1. The long blocks, between the Avenues, are approximately 6 blocks to the mile. The short blocks, between streets, are approximately 20 blocks to the mile. Note the word approximate. The Commissioners were smart enough to build in slight variations based on circumstance no hyper-rationality here.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this fact. To pick a modest example, consider the Empire State Building. That building occupies half a city block between 33rd and 34th Streets on the west side of 5th Avenue (extending half way to 6th Avenue). This half block lends the building its unique aspect ratio approximately 1.5:1 (close to the Golden Ratio). Think how much more interesting the architecture is than a building (e.g., the Sears Tower) forced into a square block. A square Empire State Building wouldn't look the same at all.

The Avenues, few and far between, are all broad boulevards with magnificent views. Consider 5th Avenue, looking downtown to the Washington Square Arch, or uptown toward Rockefeller Center. Indeed, every Avenue, from First through at least Ninth, rewards the pedestrian with a fantastic view. On this, New York beats Washington. (West of 9th Avenue, the wag might argue, just gets too close to New Jersey to be nice.)

Instead, do you want a little side street? Pick a number almost any number will do between 1 and 220, and walk cross town. Pleasant, quiet and interesting neighborhoods await. There are a few numbers 14th St., 23rd St., 34th St., 42nd St. which, by the Commissioners' design, are wider traffic thoroughfares, and impressive in their own right.

New York has two other features worthy of note. One is Central Park, between 5th Avenue and 8th Avenue, from 59th Street to 110th Street. The facetious address I listed above (8th Avenue at 88th St.) doesn't quite exist, for the Avenue along that stretch is known as Central Park West. But allowing for that difference, at 88th St. it would be a very elegant address indeed.

The second feature is the country road along the Hudson that the Commissioners rechristened as a fantastic parade route. Today we know it as Broadway. It does not follow the grid, but instead starts at Battery Park and meanders its way north and west the entire length of the island. It intersects the grid at memorable locations: Union Square, Herald Square, Times Square, Columbus Circle, and more. Please don't forget the Flatiron Building at 23rd St. (Madison Square).

There's more: I haven't talked about Lower Manhattan at all, nor any of the wonderful things you can do, see and eat. But I'm out of space, so I'll leave it here for now. I've never lived in New York City. Now that I live nearby, I take the train and walk the Commissioners' streets as often as I can. Hope you can do that, too: New York is the greatest city in the world.

Daniel Jelski is Dean of Science & Engineering State University of New York at New Paltz.



avenue street streets st york ]]>Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
First shared by - Ted_Louie
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Pity poor Matamoras, PA, population 2,600, located on the Delaware River where Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey all come together. The town has only two named streets: Delaware Drive (parallel to the river), and Pennsylvania Ave. (perpendicular).

Other streets parallel to the river are numbered: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, up to 10th. The avenues, perpendicular to the river, start with Avenue A in the north, and continue to Avenue S, in the south. Pennsylvania Ave., the main drag, is between K and L.

What a boring little town!

For another egregious example, consider Springfield, OR. The main street, imaginatively named Main Street, runs E-W, between South A Street and A Street. The other names are predictable: B Street, C Street, andwell, you get the idea. And, surprise, surprise, the N-S streets are numbered, from 1st all the way up to 75th Street (it seems there are no avenues in Springfield). Now Springfield, with nearly 60,000 people, does have a few more named streets than Matamoras (K Street has been renamed Centennial Blvd.), but not many.

Where does this sad state of affairs come from? I will guess it started in Washington, DC, where Pierre Charles L'Enfant was imported from France to design the city. He brought with him the malign influence of the French Revolution: an irrational belief in hyper-rationality. And so Washington is on a strict grid, with lettered streets running E-W, and numbered streets N-S.

Superimposed on this grid are streets named for states, most famously Pennsylvania Ave. To a very crude approximation, the States form a separate, looser grid offset by 30 degrees, though in reality they go every which way. Allegedly they provide grand vistas, and I guess they do. You'd have to tear down the Treasury Department to get the full effect.

In my view, the lettered grid streets are boring, and the state streets are unpredictable. Thus Washington is simultaneously hyper-rational and nearly unnavigable the worst of both worlds. Beyond the federal triangle it isn't a very attractive city, either.

So now consider New York City, or specifically, Manhattan. This appears even worse than Washington, what with all roads numbered. N-S roads (parallel to the primary axis of the island) are called Avenues, and are numbered from 1st Avenue in the east, the 12th Avenue along the Hudson. The E-W roads (along the island's minor axis) are also numbered, designated Streets, starting with 1st Street (just north of Houston), and ending at 220th Street, at the northern tip of the island. Thus the corner of 33rd St. and 3rd Ave. is a perfectly legitimate address, as could be 8th Ave. and 88th St.

But it is even worse than this. The widest point of the island is on the Lower East Side, and hence there is a chunk of real estate east of First Avenue. Not wanting to give tenement houses imaginative addresses, the Avenues are lettered: Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C and Avenue D. (When I first visited New York as an adult in the 1970's, this area was too dangerous to walk around even during the day. In recent years I've explored the Lower East Side on foot with no problems and great enjoyment.)

But unlike Matamoras, or Springfield, or even Washington, New York City works. Why?

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that platted the city of New York turns out to be a work of great genius. The key insight is asymmetry, or more accurately, anisotropy. Or, in colloquial terms that any New Yorker will understand, the difference between long blocks and short blocks.

For in Matamoras, Springfield, or Washington (or Chicago, or almost any other city you can name), the blocks are square. But not in New York there the blocks are rectangular at a ratio of approximately 3 to 1. The long blocks, between the Avenues, are approximately 6 blocks to the mile. The short blocks, between streets, are approximately 20 blocks to the mile. Note the word approximate. The Commissioners were smart enough to build in slight variations based on circumstance no hyper-rationality here.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this fact. To pick a modest example, consider the Empire State Building. That building occupies half a city block between 33rd and 34th Streets on the west side of 5th Avenue (extending half way to 6th Avenue). This half block lends the building its unique aspect ratio approximately 1.5:1 (close to the Golden Ratio). Think how much more interesting the architecture is than a building (e.g., the Sears Tower) forced into a square block. A square Empire State Building wouldn't look the same at all.

The Avenues, few and far between, are all broad boulevards with magnificent views. Consider 5th Avenue, looking downtown to the Washington Square Arch, or uptown toward Rockefeller Center. Indeed, every Avenue, from First through at least Ninth, rewards the pedestrian with a fantastic view. On this, New York beats Washington. (West of 9th Avenue, the wag might argue, just gets too close to New Jersey to be nice.)

Instead, do you want a little side street? Pick a number almost any number will do between 1 and 220, and walk cross town. Pleasant, quiet and interesting neighborhoods await. There are a few numbers 14th St., 23rd St., 34th St., 42nd St. which, by the Commissioners' design, are wider traffic thoroughfares, and impressive in their own right.

New York has two other features worthy of note. One is Central Park, between 5th Avenue and 8th Avenue, from 59th Street to 110th Street. The facetious address I listed above (8th Avenue at 88th St.) doesn't quite exist, for the Avenue along that stretch is known as Central Park West. But allowing for that difference, at 88th St. it would be a very elegant address indeed.

The second feature is the country road along the Hudson that the Commissioners rechristened as a fantastic parade route. Today we know it as Broadway. It does not follow the grid, but instead starts at Battery Park and meanders its way north and west the entire length of the island. It intersects the grid at memorable locations: Union Square, Herald Square, Times Square, Columbus Circle, and more. Please don't forget the Flatiron Building at 23rd St. (Madison Square).

There's more: I haven't talked about Lower Manhattan at all, nor any of the wonderful things you can do, see and eat. But I'm out of space, so I'll leave it here for now. I've never lived in New York City. Now that I live nearby, I take the train and walk the Commissioners' streets as often as I can. Hope you can do that, too: New York is the greatest city in the world.

Daniel Jelski is Dean of Science & Engineering State University of New York at New Paltz.



avenue street streets st york ]]> Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:50:50 -0500 30:00 tag:filome.com,3 The Evolution of New Media, Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Business: A Brief History of Everything http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NewCommBiz/~3/vMeiuSzboik/ Shared item New Comm Biz
First shared by - Avi
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So what is Social Media? We know what it is when we see it. We can give you examples of social media but you'll be hard pressed to get a very satisfactory answer out of anyone. Is it the opposite of antisocial media? Not exactly. Is it a medium? Is it a movement? Is it a technology? The very unsatisfactory answer is yes, to all three questions.

Image via Wikipedia

And if we can't even explain Social Media very well why are some people already using terms like social business or social enterprise? Is it just a branding exercise? Partly. But part of the need for newer definitions is because the old ones don't work perfectly. But before we get to the newer definitions I'd like to stay focused on the current one of Social Media.

Really, all of this is the latest evolutionary attempt to sound smart with vocabulary. Over the last 10 years we've been trying to explain the changes that have taken place on the Web and the effects of which we've felt throughout business and culture.

In order to really explain to you what Social Media is I need to take you on a relatively short journey over the last 10 years. (Short for a history lesson but long for a blog post).

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Almost 10 years ago the Web crashed. Well not the Web, the economy. But everyone blamed the Web. After people came to grips with what happened they were left licking their wounds and pondering the great dot com crash. After the party was over and the money left town, the die hards stuck around and continued to use the Internet for many exciting things. Most Internet advocates felt betrayed. It wasn't their fault the bubble popped. It was driven by the worst combination of corporate greed and ignorance. Out of these digital ashes rose the awareness that if the Internet was going to reach its full potential things were going to have to be different. Real people needed to be in the driver seat not the collective conscious-less, non-entity called The Corporation. Corporations allowed greedy narrow minded people to do things they'd never do in the light of day.

At first there was no terminology to describe what was happening. One of the earliest attempts to put a voice to this, The Cluetrain Manifesto, tried to explain the shift, years before the bubble popped, by pointing out that markets had become conversations. Companies could no longer push messaging at customers and expect them to act like sheep. Outside of a small group of Web dissidents and scholars no one had any idea what the Cluetrain Manifesto was talking about. Few even knew it existed even though it had been placed on the Web for free. Ironically no one had a clue. Many interpreted it as the ranting's of a bunch of idealists. Little did they know the authors of Cluetrain were (and still are) some of the biggest skeptics. The Clutrain Manifesto was the first shot fired in a new revolution. But no one heard it.

Eventually consumers and employees started taking to web-logs as a way to communicate with one another, voice their opinions on things and occasionally get really worked up about this unidentified cause and really, really worked up over the newest bright shiny web object. It would take approximately 5 years before the first signs of this coming storm were visible.

New Media

Web-blogs became blogs with comments and RSS and our first linguistic attempt to put a name on the revolution fell short with New Media. Yeah, not very original, but it was a start. More and more people started to see the writing on the walls and began to talk about how in theory companies could use blogs and RSS to communicate directly with customers.

Stop and think about that for a minute: In theory they could communicate directly with their customers? It may seem like a complete radical prospect now but less than 5 years ago it was almost impossible for a large global company to communicate with (not just broadcast to) their customers. Their usual weapons of choice were advertisements and press releases. Either way they were reliant on the media to carry that message for them.

Driving this change was a fun little movement called Word of Mouth Marketing. Built on the premise that traditional marketing was intrusive and irrelevant, WOM was and still is a return to people communicating with people. Create great experiences, empower your customers to be evangelists and let WOM happen. Idealistic at times but still one of the core precepts behind social media. People being people and doing cool things. While WOM was and still is hugely popular it quickly took a back seat to New Media. WOM by itself is nice but digital WOM scales.

Blogs and RSS were only the beginning. AJAX, Java scripts, wikis, mashups, blogs and other (relatively) user friendly, and mostly open source, technologies made programming easier than ever and almost free. New Media and WOM couldn't explain the broader possibilities these tools had on business. These tools weren't just for geeks and marketers, they had powerful implications on IT and business.

Web 2.0

Tim Orielly would eventually stand up on a stage and pronounce that we had entered a new state on the Internet: Web 2.0. This was our nascent movements first major assault and our first real buzz word. Overnight everything became 2.0. No one wanted to be an irrelevant 1.0, everyone needed to become 2.0. But like most buzz words no one really knew what it meant.

Web 2.0 was the term given to these revolutionizing technologies that were enabling New Media and putting it in the hands of consumers. Two geek's in a basement somewhere were creating websites that acted more like software and allowed customers to create, publish and curate their own content faster and cheaper than the media or corporate marketing departments could ever dream of.

The natives were restless and they were pounding on the gates. The real problem was that the natives were better armed, better trained and far out numbered the establishment. It was the equivalent of the French Revolution, except instead of starving peasants they were Navy Seals armed to the teeth.

The revolution wasn't just being waged on the media and marketing organizations. Lost tribes like Knowledge Management and internal IT revolutionaries raised a rallying cry against outdated, limiting, expensive and just plain crappy Enterprise software. Andrew McAfee raised the flag of Enterprise 2.0 and an army was formed.

Then things started to get interesting. The revolutionaries quickly became tired of corporate America and every Johnny-come-lately grabbing onto the Web 2.0 moniker. People already wanted to claim things were Web 3.0. The shark had been jumped. As quickly as it sprung up Web 2.0 was replaced by Social Media. Social Media as a term and as an industry, flourished even while the economy crashed and burned.

Social Media

Corporate America stumbled, tripped and fell flat on it's face, taking the World's economy with it. Newspapers, media companies and advertising agencies opened wide the faucet and shed employees as fast as they could. Yet if you worked in Social Media during this time you would have never known anything was wrong with the economy. While those holding down the status quo got the rug pulled out from underneath them Social Media climbed to new heights, looked over it's shoulder and gave the dead a dying a look that said, I told you so.

The battle would soon be over. 90% of the US population is online. 80% of the online population now uses Social Media in some form. But you almost have to try not to. Facebook is ubiquitous, I doubt there's a newspaper online that doesn't have a blog and the once proud traditional media has embraced Social Media in a desperate bear hug to stay relevant. Even Oprah and Martha Stewart are on Twitter. Today, Social Media has a firm stronghold on our vernacular. But, the term, Social Media has it's limits.

The Next Evolution

Much like New Media and WOM couldn't explain all the possibilities implied in Web 2.0, new terms like Social Business or the Social Enterprise are trying to get at all the implications this revolution has on business. Unlike Web 2.0 the linguistic challenges it faces aren't just technical, they're also cultural. A Social Business/Enterprise is as much the internal reflection of what Social Media reflects externally as it is a technologically opportunity.

I personally think that over the next few years the buzzwords will die away and we'll just be back to, The Web and Media and Business again. But I don't hate the buzzwords, its normal, actually its unavoidable. And while I may not have given you a clear definition, hopefully I've given you enough context as to how we got here that you don't need to rely on buzzwords and their made up definitions. Here's to the next 10 years.

Join the New Comm Biz Facebook Page or follow the Twitter account.

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media social web business years ]]>New Comm Biz
First shared by - Avi
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 3

So what is Social Media? We know what it is when we see it. We can give you examples of social media but you'll be hard pressed to get a very satisfactory answer out of anyone. Is it the opposite of antisocial media? Not exactly. Is it a medium? Is it a movement? Is it a technology? The very unsatisfactory answer is yes, to all three questions.

Image via Wikipedia

And if we can't even explain Social Media very well why are some people already using terms like social business or social enterprise? Is it just a branding exercise? Partly. But part of the need for newer definitions is because the old ones don't work perfectly. But before we get to the newer definitions I'd like to stay focused on the current one of Social Media.

Really, all of this is the latest evolutionary attempt to sound smart with vocabulary. Over the last 10 years we've been trying to explain the changes that have taken place on the Web and the effects of which we've felt throughout business and culture.

In order to really explain to you what Social Media is I need to take you on a relatively short journey over the last 10 years. (Short for a history lesson but long for a blog post).

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Almost 10 years ago the Web crashed. Well not the Web, the economy. But everyone blamed the Web. After people came to grips with what happened they were left licking their wounds and pondering the great dot com crash. After the party was over and the money left town, the die hards stuck around and continued to use the Internet for many exciting things. Most Internet advocates felt betrayed. It wasn't their fault the bubble popped. It was driven by the worst combination of corporate greed and ignorance. Out of these digital ashes rose the awareness that if the Internet was going to reach its full potential things were going to have to be different. Real people needed to be in the driver seat not the collective conscious-less, non-entity called The Corporation. Corporations allowed greedy narrow minded people to do things they'd never do in the light of day.

At first there was no terminology to describe what was happening. One of the earliest attempts to put a voice to this, The Cluetrain Manifesto, tried to explain the shift, years before the bubble popped, by pointing out that markets had become conversations. Companies could no longer push messaging at customers and expect them to act like sheep. Outside of a small group of Web dissidents and scholars no one had any idea what the Cluetrain Manifesto was talking about. Few even knew it existed even though it had been placed on the Web for free. Ironically no one had a clue. Many interpreted it as the ranting's of a bunch of idealists. Little did they know the authors of Cluetrain were (and still are) some of the biggest skeptics. The Clutrain Manifesto was the first shot fired in a new revolution. But no one heard it.

Eventually consumers and employees started taking to web-logs as a way to communicate with one another, voice their opinions on things and occasionally get really worked up about this unidentified cause and really, really worked up over the newest bright shiny web object. It would take approximately 5 years before the first signs of this coming storm were visible.

New Media

Web-blogs became blogs with comments and RSS and our first linguistic attempt to put a name on the revolution fell short with New Media. Yeah, not very original, but it was a start. More and more people started to see the writing on the walls and began to talk about how in theory companies could use blogs and RSS to communicate directly with customers.

Stop and think about that for a minute: In theory they could communicate directly with their customers? It may seem like a complete radical prospect now but less than 5 years ago it was almost impossible for a large global company to communicate with (not just broadcast to) their customers. Their usual weapons of choice were advertisements and press releases. Either way they were reliant on the media to carry that message for them.

Driving this change was a fun little movement called Word of Mouth Marketing. Built on the premise that traditional marketing was intrusive and irrelevant, WOM was and still is a return to people communicating with people. Create great experiences, empower your customers to be evangelists and let WOM happen. Idealistic at times but still one of the core precepts behind social media. People being people and doing cool things. While WOM was and still is hugely popular it quickly took a back seat to New Media. WOM by itself is nice but digital WOM scales.

Blogs and RSS were only the beginning. AJAX, Java scripts, wikis, mashups, blogs and other (relatively) user friendly, and mostly open source, technologies made programming easier than ever and almost free. New Media and WOM couldn't explain the broader possibilities these tools had on business. These tools weren't just for geeks and marketers, they had powerful implications on IT and business.

Web 2.0

Tim Orielly would eventually stand up on a stage and pronounce that we had entered a new state on the Internet: Web 2.0. This was our nascent movements first major assault and our first real buzz word. Overnight everything became 2.0. No one wanted to be an irrelevant 1.0, everyone needed to become 2.0. But like most buzz words no one really knew what it meant.

Web 2.0 was the term given to these revolutionizing technologies that were enabling New Media and putting it in the hands of consumers. Two geek's in a basement somewhere were creating websites that acted more like software and allowed customers to create, publish and curate their own content faster and cheaper than the media or corporate marketing departments could ever dream of.

The natives were restless and they were pounding on the gates. The real problem was that the natives were better armed, better trained and far out numbered the establishment. It was the equivalent of the French Revolution, except instead of starving peasants they were Navy Seals armed to the teeth.

The revolution wasn't just being waged on the media and marketing organizations. Lost tribes like Knowledge Management and internal IT revolutionaries raised a rallying cry against outdated, limiting, expensive and just plain crappy Enterprise software. Andrew McAfee raised the flag of Enterprise 2.0 and an army was formed.

Then things started to get interesting. The revolutionaries quickly became tired of corporate America and every Johnny-come-lately grabbing onto the Web 2.0 moniker. People already wanted to claim things were Web 3.0. The shark had been jumped. As quickly as it sprung up Web 2.0 was replaced by Social Media. Social Media as a term and as an industry, flourished even while the economy crashed and burned.

Social Media

Corporate America stumbled, tripped and fell flat on it's face, taking the World's economy with it. Newspapers, media companies and advertising agencies opened wide the faucet and shed employees as fast as they could. Yet if you worked in Social Media during this time you would have never known anything was wrong with the economy. While those holding down the status quo got the rug pulled out from underneath them Social Media climbed to new heights, looked over it's shoulder and gave the dead a dying a look that said, I told you so.

The battle would soon be over. 90% of the US population is online. 80% of the online population now uses Social Media in some form. But you almost have to try not to. Facebook is ubiquitous, I doubt there's a newspaper online that doesn't have a blog and the once proud traditional media has embraced Social Media in a desperate bear hug to stay relevant. Even Oprah and Martha Stewart are on Twitter. Today, Social Media has a firm stronghold on our vernacular. But, the term, Social Media has it's limits.

The Next Evolution

Much like New Media and WOM couldn't explain all the possibilities implied in Web 2.0, new terms like Social Business or the Social Enterprise are trying to get at all the implications this revolution has on business. Unlike Web 2.0 the linguistic challenges it faces aren't just technical, they're also cultural. A Social Business/Enterprise is as much the internal reflection of what Social Media reflects externally as it is a technologically opportunity.

I personally think that over the next few years the buzzwords will die away and we'll just be back to, The Web and Media and Business again. But I don't hate the buzzwords, its normal, actually its unavoidable. And while I may not have given you a clear definition, hopefully I've given you enough context as to how we got here that you don't need to rely on buzzwords and their made up definitions. Here's to the next 10 years.

Join the New Comm Biz Facebook Page or follow the Twitter account.

Related articles by Zemanta
Share and Enjoy:



media social web business years ]]> Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:01:00 -0500 30:00 tag:filome.com,4 Reading a Novel, 140 Characters at a Time http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/15/reading-a-novel-140-characters-at-a-time/ Shared item WSJ.com: Digits
First shared by - SteveRubel
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With a main character named Esmerelda Van Twinkle, you'd think Matt Stewart wouldn't have much trouble attracting attention to his new novel, The French Revolution.



But rather than, say, holding a release party or kicking off a bookstore tour, he's releasing snippets of the book, bit by bit and in chronological order, on Twitter. The 140-character limit and abbreviated language used on Twitter may seem contrary to the objectives of literary fiction, but as he writes on his Web site, July 14 is Bastille Day the day that kicked off the real French Revolution. It's the perfect time to do something crazy.

Mr. Stewart, who is a marketing director for a green nonprofit, figured that Twitter would be a way to pique people's interest in the print-edition of the book. This was like giving someone a few minutes of a TV show before going to Netflix and renting the whole season, he said. If you get a punchy 140-character message their way, that's more likely to get their attention.

His agent, Lisa Grubka, also represents the guys responsible for the Bacon Explosion, a gluttonous concoction of bacon interwoven with sausage that spread like wildfire across the Internet with the help of StumbleUpon and Twitter.

Publishing houses liked The French Revolution, his debut novel, Mr. Stewart said, but viewed it as a risky purchase because of its raunchy humor and fantastical plot. What better place to take risks than Twitter? he says. He is giving away free copies of The French Revolution on document-sharing site
Scribd and selling the Kindle version on Amazon for $2.

He kicked off his Bastille Day-tweeting by posting short bursts of the book every minute, but has slowed down to avoid overwhelming followers. A friend of his built a tool that breaks the text down to 140-character chunks to become approximately 3,700 tweets, which will take him a month or two to post. His Twitter following has more than quadrupled, and he's reaching out to techies and publishing-industry Twitter users to gain followers and, hopefully, publication.

Reading his book via tweets is challenging, because one has to follow the Twitter feed backwards to get the story chronologically. With tweets like her triceps, halting her body, tucking up her legs, and swinging forward in a herky-jerk motion that was and walker lurched forward in gulps as she plowed through the morning urban bustle, her gumdrop-shaped body quivering, it's tough to process the story with any sense of continuity.

But Mr. Stewart is quick to emphasize that he didn't write this novel for Twitter and is instead using the microblogging service as an experiment. I don't think anything's ever going to replace the depth and experience of reading a novel, he says. I wrote [this book] to be a rich and compelling work of literary fiction. It's not written in 140-character sentences. So if you see it, it's enough to want to hear about more.



twitter book character novel french ]]>WSJ.com: Digits
First shared by - SteveRubel
syndication+ 257 | Search 1 | Shares 1

With a main character named Esmerelda Van Twinkle, you'd think Matt Stewart wouldn't have much trouble attracting attention to his new novel, The French Revolution.



But rather than, say, holding a release party or kicking off a bookstore tour, he's releasing snippets of the book, bit by bit and in chronological order, on Twitter. The 140-character limit and abbreviated language used on Twitter may seem contrary to the objectives of literary fiction, but as he writes on his Web site, July 14 is Bastille Day the day that kicked off the real French Revolution. It's the perfect time to do something crazy.

Mr. Stewart, who is a marketing director for a green nonprofit, figured that Twitter would be a way to pique people's interest in the print-edition of the book. This was like giving someone a few minutes of a TV show before going to Netflix and renting the whole season, he said. If you get a punchy 140-character message their way, that's more likely to get their attention.

His agent, Lisa Grubka, also represents the guys responsible for the Bacon Explosion, a gluttonous concoction of bacon interwoven with sausage that spread like wildfire across the Internet with the help of StumbleUpon and Twitter.

Publishing houses liked The French Revolution, his debut novel, Mr. Stewart said, but viewed it as a risky purchase because of its raunchy humor and fantastical plot. What better place to take risks than Twitter? he says. He is giving away free copies of The French Revolution on document-sharing site
Scribd and selling the Kindle version on Amazon for $2.

He kicked off his Bastille Day-tweeting by posting short bursts of the book every minute, but has slowed down to avoid overwhelming followers. A friend of his built a tool that breaks the text down to 140-character chunks to become approximately 3,700 tweets, which will take him a month or two to post. His Twitter following has more than quadrupled, and he's reaching out to techies and publishing-industry Twitter users to gain followers and, hopefully, publication.

Reading his book via tweets is challenging, because one has to follow the Twitter feed backwards to get the story chronologically. With tweets like her triceps, halting her body, tucking up her legs, and swinging forward in a herky-jerk motion that was and walker lurched forward in gulps as she plowed through the morning urban bustle, her gumdrop-shaped body quivering, it's tough to process the story with any sense of continuity.

But Mr. Stewart is quick to emphasize that he didn't write this novel for Twitter and is instead using the microblogging service as an experiment. I don't think anything's ever going to replace the depth and experience of reading a novel, he says. I wrote [this book] to be a rich and compelling work of literary fiction. It's not written in 140-character sentences. So if you see it, it's enough to want to hear about more.



twitter book character novel french ]]> Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:17:33 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,5 3,700 Tweets And 480,000 Characters Later, There Will Be An Original Novel On Twitter http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/b_V0IbkVox0/ Shared item TechCrunch
First shared by - ksmith
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Who says 140 characters isn't enough to say something constructive? Matt Stewart is writing an entire novel that way.

Yes, Stewart is publishing his entire 480,000 character book at 130 characters at a time (to leave room for hashtags and links) on Twitter. To be clear, the book, called The French Revolution (being released today, appropriately on Bastille Day), is already written. But Stewart and his agent couldn't get any publishers to bite, so they decided to go the non-traditional route, to say the least.

Here's how this works: Every so often, Stewart is tweeting out sentences (or incomplete sentences) from the book. No, he's not doing this by hand, he got a programmer to help him automate the process. The result is slowing spilling out the entire narrative of the book to his Twitter feed.

If you think this would be impossible to follow in a regular stream of tweets, you're right. That's why Stewart has a website chronicling the whole story thus far (or, of course, you can simply click on his Twitter page to read it though backwards). Stewart expects that will will take about 3,700 tweets to get the full story out there.

Others have taken this approach to put pieces of writing on Twitter, and plenty have even crowd-sourced the writing of works on the service. But Stewart believes his is the first full-length literary novel to be released first on Twitter. To commemorate the launch, you can also find his book for free on Scribd, or find it on Amazon's Kindle for $1.99.

The obvious question is: Is the book any good? It's too hard to tell at this point. We're only about 80 updates into the 3,700. Regardless, this seems like a good idea for a guy who couldn't get a book deal. Who knows, maybe he'll even land a book deal now to write about his experience in publishing a book on Twitter.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors



book stewart twitter writing novel ]]>TechCrunch
First shared by - ksmith
syndication+ 95 | Search 2 | Shares 2

Who says 140 characters isn't enough to say something constructive? Matt Stewart is writing an entire novel that way.

Yes, Stewart is publishing his entire 480,000 character book at 130 characters at a time (to leave room for hashtags and links) on Twitter. To be clear, the book, called The French Revolution (being released today, appropriately on Bastille Day), is already written. But Stewart and his agent couldn't get any publishers to bite, so they decided to go the non-traditional route, to say the least.

Here's how this works: Every so often, Stewart is tweeting out sentences (or incomplete sentences) from the book. No, he's not doing this by hand, he got a programmer to help him automate the process. The result is slowing spilling out the entire narrative of the book to his Twitter feed.

If you think this would be impossible to follow in a regular stream of tweets, you're right. That's why Stewart has a website chronicling the whole story thus far (or, of course, you can simply click on his Twitter page to read it though backwards). Stewart expects that will will take about 3,700 tweets to get the full story out there.

Others have taken this approach to put pieces of writing on Twitter, and plenty have even crowd-sourced the writing of works on the service. But Stewart believes his is the first full-length literary novel to be released first on Twitter. To commemorate the launch, you can also find his book for free on Scribd, or find it on Amazon's Kindle for $1.99.

The obvious question is: Is the book any good? It's too hard to tell at this point. We're only about 80 updates into the 3,700. Regardless, this seems like a good idea for a guy who couldn't get a book deal. Who knows, maybe he'll even land a book deal now to write about his experience in publishing a book on Twitter.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors



book stewart twitter writing novel ]]> Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:34:39 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,6