October 30, 2008
No longer limited to catch phrases and mini alligators, 2d code is reporting that the world’s first multimedia novel as a t-shirt has just been published:
“Winksite have teamed up with author Alexander Besher to publish his latest novel “The Manga Man”, not as a book but as a T-shirt . The “Manga Man” T-shirt (photo below) displays a QR Code that links to a mobile site from which a prospective reader can display the narrative directly. There is much more to this than appears at first sight and you can read more on Winksite CEO David Harper’s blog.”
Although the design and tag line are a bit lacking (what is that climbing thing? “sayonara you’re about to be digitized”???), I love the idea of using QR codes in innovative ways. Especially in support of a larger narrative.
Check out 2d’s site to find out more.
October 29, 2008
First Twittories, then Don Draper. Now, writer Nikki Katz is twittering a story called MyLifeIn140:
The story takes the form of frequently updated tweets, which relate the main character’s thoughts and the events around her. Because the story only started a few days ago most of the tweets are related to character development and could have come from any angsty teenager, but the seeds of a story have been planted.
To be honest, there’s no way I’d ever want to follow MyLifeIn140 for any length of time, especially with tweets like:
“Doing the layout of the page with Caleb’s pic. Swoon. He looks hot! White shirt sets off his tan and his green eyes pop. And that hair…”.
But I’m not the target audience. I could see MyLifeIn140 and similar stories taking off at high schools, with the same kind of virality seen by the fictional LonelyGirl15 video series that managed to amass a huge following and spawned several spinoffs. And periodically updated text stories have been very popular abroad, where a significant number of best selling books were written from mobile phones.
(via TechCrunch)
October 29, 2008
Teen Lab is a research program that gets kids to talk about their end-user experiences with technology. Recently they asked Quinn to talk about social networks.
Her rundown:
- Webkinz: Old news. Used to play “a while ago” but has since moved on.
- Club Penguin: Used to have a paid membership but no longer. Now just uses it to chat with friends.
- Polyvore: (A scrapbooking-esque site where you can pull pictures off the web and turn them into “sets” that users then comment on and favorite.) Loves it. Found out about it from her mom 8 months ago.
- Teen Second Life
Quinn defines it as a cross between Club Penguin and Sims 2.) Still figuring it out, but liking it so far.
I downloaded the Polyvore clip tool to try it out. Images are super easy to pull, but on some there’s a lot of distortion when you add them to your set.
October 29, 2008
Poketo (designer of limited edition accessible art objects & apparel) and 826LA (a non-profit dedicated to supporting kids 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, as well as sister to 826NYC) have teamed up to create a line of wallets that feature art on the front and hilarious kids’ writing on the back. Arists like Esther Pearl Watson, Mark Todd, and Martha Rich were paired with kids like Roberto age 4, Helen age 6, and Sofia ageless.
(From Roberto) There were two boys named Roberto & Slater were playing outside. Ha Ha Ha! That was so funny. Make another joke. Ok…Hee Hee your killing me. Oooh I’m I’m Slater. Oooh I’m Roberto. Boom what was that? Let’s go see. Ok. Mo, haha I’m the god of fighting. Whoa…Hey can you hear me. Uh yes my first person…Zap! Ahh! Poke, ouch. No! I’ve been defeated!
Amazing.
(via My Love for You)
