A VC - Latest Comments in Reading Books On Twitter

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Dorian Benkoil — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:27:17 -0000

Yeah, mee too. I'm disappointed.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Jason Preston — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:24:25 -0000

You know, it seems to me like one of those twitterbots (like @winetweets) would be a great way to aggregate the conversation around any particular book.

I don't have the technical know-how to set one up, but doing something like @dailylitconvo whenever you wanted to discuss a theme, issue, idea, or anything related to the current books could be cool. Or maybe a bot for each book.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Adrian — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:15:18 -0000

Good stuff, great idea!

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

auston — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:10:58 -0000

Fred, you're the greatest man!

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Dhru Purohit — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:41:12 -0000

I just installed it. Thinking about how I will use it.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Susan Danziger — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:55:58 -0000

...do you think books written on mobile devices would be of interest to readers here?

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Susan Danziger — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:14:52 -0000

We would certainly consider it, although for now we are focusing on bestselling titles; books by well-known authors; and works that have been critically well-reviewed.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

fredwilson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:09:05 -0000

The sign of a good web company: when the ceo replies to comments in blog posts about her product. Well done

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Nick Molnar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:48:58 -0000

I mean books written from mobile ---> read on mobile

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Nick Molnar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:48:06 -0000

I mean books from mobile to mobile

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Susan Danziger — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:44:05 -0000

Not sure what you mean by "mobile uploading capability". Please explain.
Thanks.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

simondodson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:40:48 -0000

dam . count me in..

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Nick Molnar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:39:59 -0000

Interesting, I had no idea about that little piece of history. I still maintain that this format will serve certain genres far better than others. In Japan, the most popular forms of keitai shousetsu are pulp fiction/romance, which seems like an appropriate type of content for the medium. A novel by Michael Ondaatje, however, would not be well served being broken into discrete chunks. It has flow and style and complexity that would be lost reading it over a period of weeks. I'm not sure if pulp fiction will be the dominant form of American mobile reading, there are massive cultural differences, but I doubt that success in hardcover will ever function as a valid proxy for success on the mobile.

Does anyone know if Dailylit is planning on adding a mobile uploading capability? I guess anyone could put something like that together with twitter-rss capability and a blog, though.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Susan Danziger — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:21:23 -0000

Actually, thousands of people have already read Pride and Prejudice in short installments via DailyLit. Since each installment is about a thousand words (under 5 minutes of reading), a book that may seem daunting to read suddenly becomes quite manageable. In fact, this is very much in the tradition of serialization when Dickens' books were initially released in installments in weekly newspapers (and each weekly installment was approximately 5000 words).

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

smilbandit — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:09:18 -0000

I looked into dailylit but it didn't really click for me. My daughter (8) loves getting email. I send her emails and get other family members to send them also because none of her friends are using the internet for more then webkinz. It would be an interesting to see if she would like to get a book via email everyday, for some light summer reading. A childrens book and a wikipedia tour might be perfect.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Nick Molnar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:05:53 -0000

The important distinction between what is going on in Japan and what Dailylit is doing is that the Japanese books are being written on mobile devices for mobile devices. I think it takes a particular style of writing to work on a mobile device. Self help might work as-is because it is designed to be bite-sized, but Pride and Prejudice probably won't.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Nick Molnar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:31:02 -0000

This is something that has been going on in Japan for a few years now (South Korea too). Techcrunch wrote about it in December http://www.techcrunch.com/2.... Seems like most things in the mobile sector hit Japan 2-3 years before they become popular stateside (see: 3G, cameraphones, SMS). Dailylit's timing might just be right.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

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Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Holly Hoffman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:40:23 -0000

Sweet! I'll be reading Pride & Prejudice (for the millionth time, thank you). This is awesome, and great for those of us who can't actually find a worthwhile book club.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

GeorgeT6 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:29:10 -0000

I have not quite made the plunge into Twitter but this seems just the thing to draw me in. Working, as I do, for a tech manufacutrer I could see applying this to a tech goup in reading white papers,etc.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

gregory — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:18:38 -0000

the conversation around the reading, possibly better than the book? i would not be surprised .... a shared solitary activity, the essence of the social web, now that i think of it .... :)

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

jasonkolb — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:50:41 -0000

Do you find that you actually read this every single day? Or do you let them pile up for a few days and then spend a day catching up? That seems to be my standard mode of operation with blog posts, anyway...

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

Tony Confrey — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:07:11 -0000

Penguin has also been experimenting with delivering books online as bite-sized chunks. They had a recent experiment that used Twitter, LiveJournal and Google Maps, see http://www.readwriteweb.com...

Theres definitely a hunger among book publishers to figure out ways to leverage new media to deliver their content. I think as we all get reasonably sized screens on our handhelds online reading will get more popular. DailyLit is an interesting angle on it. The notion that I'm reading the book at the same time as others, in the same chunks, opens up a lot of possibilities to leverage social media to enhance the reading experience.

-Tony

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

ErikSchwartz — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:01:41 -0000

I read the headline and I though I would be reading books 140 characters at a time.

Re: Reading Books On Twitter

S.t — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:22:52 -0000

Holy Jeez this is a great idea