Image by pt via Flickr

EBooks may be on the rise but they have a major flaw. Their greatest obstacle is that they function like paper books, but that’s not how we read.

I don’t know why it is that most eBook reading software now insists on using a pages metaphor. We had been forced into a certain format by the requirements of the medium. Back with the first books, it was because you could only carry around so big a stone tablet. Later on, it was because the process of mass production of printed content forced us to use bindings and other limits.

We read in a certain format because we didn’t have any other choice.  However, with digital technology there is a whole future of new options. We can start looking towards other formats. However, it seems we are still obsessed with the page flip.

After the Kindle, my favorite digital reading experience was years ago on my Palm Pilot. The best thing about it was the auto-scroll. I understand that the technical requirements of eInk make something like that difficult, however it seems to have disappeared everywhere. I thought that tablets would take advantage of technology to create a new reading experience, but for the most part they haven’t.

With digital technology we are moving back towards using the format of a scroll.

Sideways might be the new standard, but it doesn’t make it the only way. The down-scroll has become the dominant metaphor for reading online and for good reason, it makes sense. It allows us to format and enrich content for a screen rather than that awkward and heavy bound thing we’ve become so used to lugging around.

Besides that, we read down. Unless we are willing to scroll our eyes across one single line of text, we desire line breaks. Which means that the reading experience inevitably moves down, not sideways. Our reading devices need to reflect that.

There is no reason for mobile devices to take a step backward from what we’ve built online. Just because our screens are more book sized, doesn’t mean they need to function like books.

So what should we aim for in the future of digital publications?

• Let’s get rid of the page turn, it’s just silly.
• More auto-scroll would be an excellent feature for non-eInk devices.
• As nice as it might be to sync up your reading with your friends, Amazon had the right idea. Page numbers make no sense on a digital document whose format is altered at the will of the user. Percentages are probably the right way to go.
• Navigation of these new formats should rely on metadata than numbers. Not just chapters, but also commonly shared sections, mentions of new characters, events, and other narrative points.

That’s just a few thoughts. As we escape repressive book-bindings, what else do you think should change?

Related articles

• The eBook User’s Bill of Rights (librarianinblack.net)
• Why I’m supporting Adobe Digital Editions (onsoftware.en.softonic.com)
• H.P. Lovecraft’s 10 Favorite Words and a Free Lovecraft eBook (tor.com)

Related posts:

1. Brick-and-mortar bookstores have a future. It’s mobile.
2. What would you want in a Kindle app?
3. Hello and Welcome

Image via Wikipedia

It has been a long time since my first introduction to this site. A lot has changed, including the name, my purpose and my topics. I guess it’s time to explain why the site is called HackText and what the point of all this is.

When the blog started, I didn’t understand that the word I wanted to use was transmedia. The concept of building a universe around a narrative, one that is additive, not repetitive. A universe of connected narratives that could appeal to all the senses by taking advantage of the unique media platforms on which they could be build.

As I explored, read and researched using transmedia as my lens, I discovered a number of perceptions of transmedia as a concept:

• Both the media and individuals really want to use transmedia methods in their storytelling.
• People were calling the franchising of content (reusing the same content over multiple formats) transmedia.
• Most seemed to be more interested in fracturing a narrative and scattering it over media platforms then actually creating an additive experience.
• Narrative doesn’t only infuse transmedia concepts, it infuses everything, but people seemed to be missing it.
• Few seem to be fully taking advantage of any media platform, video, interactive or otherwise.
• Those who did try to fully take advantage of the various platforms available rarely met with commercial success.
• There is an ever expanding number of tools and platforms for both creating and consuming texts, but, mostly, we keep publishing the same plain options.

What is a text?

I could try and rephrase this, but Wikipedia just does it better:

A text … is a coherent set of symbols that transmits some kind of informative message. This set of symbols is considered in terms of the informative message’s content, rather than in terms of its physical form or the medium in which it is represented.

Simply put, in the context I’m using a text is the composition of the basic symbols we use to communicate in the form of a narrative.

Why would I want to hack a text?

There are a number of good reasons to hack a text. For one thing, we are stuck in a rut. We have an ever-growing potential to revolutionize the way we create and consume narratives and we just don’t. Even worse, when the rare person makes an attempt, he seems to get shunned. When we get beyond the buzzword, most transmedia attempts lean towards franchises and, even within the multiple storytelling elements, rarely are the media forms used to their full potential.

Part of the new purpose of this blog is to explore (and sometimes test) the ways we can break these traditional media formats open and build transmedia elements on top and inside of standard texts, allowing greater interactivity and building hooks into texts that reach out into the crossing narratives that make up a transmedia world.

Besides that, well-hacked texts can be profitable, especially online, where SEO is a hugely important field and, when done well, builds narrative just as ably as any other technique.

How can we start hacking a text?

Well, that’s what I intend to discover. I believe that there is an overarching set of narrative concepts and techniques that can be applied to texts to create better transmedia. One of the first principles of this theory is narrative artifacts. I hope to discover or research these basic concepts and use them to build up new methodologies for expanding texts with modern technology.

Oh and I hope to apply them, here and elsewhere.

Why Hack Text and not Text Hacker?

The title of this site is an exhortation! Go out and hack text!

Related articles

Related posts:

1. Carnival of Journalism: Hack your life with the Kindle, After the Deadline and more
2. Expanding your narrative with parallels [Narrative Artifacts: 3 of 4]

I’ve been looking into Kindle application development. Considering how many Kindles are out there, there is a huge potential market for a few good applications on the device.

There are some serious limitations to keep in mind when theorizing a Kindle app, specifically two big ones. The black and white, low-refresh, nature of an eInk display is the first one. Apps should be visually slow. The second one is that, at least from the information I’ve found, Amazon holds the creator of any application responsible for data-charges that the application makes on any users’ device. The charges are at 15 cents/megabyte.

Yeah, you read that correctly. If you build a Kindle application it better not poll the internet very often or you have to factor in serious pricing issues. You either need to build an application with infinite amounts of use in its cost or you need to figure out some way to regularly make money off of your application. The only two ways I can think of to make that work is some sort of subscription scheme or advertising.

So with that in mind, let’s brainstorm some applications. I’ve got a few in mind and if you want to contribute, feel free to add ideas into the comments.

The Aggregator

The idea would be to build a Feedly or FlipBook style mix of sources (or even a set of stories from a single source beyond a standard subscription) that you could browse in a summarized multi-story format. The more user input used to create the page, the better of course. This might work better as a website people can visit, because otherwise you’d be responsible for some pretty tremendous data charges, even if you restricted users to a once a day rate. Also, it would have to compete with the mobile Google Reader site, which works decently on the Kindle.

You could mix in some ads to cover costs, but the issue is that the more successful the application, the higher the price would be to deliver content.

I’d love to have this as a configurable application, but in the end, the data costs seem to restrictive. Perhaps it would be easier to set up online? I can imagine that building a custom site with FeedWordPress might do it. A website formatted to act as a Kindle magazine. Something to work on. I’ll put that on a to-do list. A big to do would be to make each summery block act as a link, so Kindle users’ don’t get frustrated with navigation.

What’s the resolution on a Kindle browsing the web anyway?

The Interactive Fiction

The Kindle seems like the optimal platform for Interactive Fiction, especially if it gives you options instead of requiring typing of commands. I know that this might be a cheap pass for IF aficionados, but it would appeal to a larger market and besides, the Kindle’s keyboard is sometimes a bit odd to use.

There are already a few implementations of Kindle IF out there:

• The most interesting IF I’ve found is Dusk World, a graphic novel-infused adventure IF (via). I haven’t played it yet, but it seems to mix option-based gameplay with some nice imagery for a branched story. The reviews on Amazon are good and I’ll probably try it out. I think it’s a good casual interactive fiction and a very good idea. I’d love to see more, and perhaps something more visual for navigation, the ability to click on objects (linked areas of an image?).
• There is an excellent web-based implementation of the classic IF tales at KindleQuest. Well worth checking out if you’d like to replay Zork.
• There are also two standard choose-your-own-adventure-type tales: Choice of the Dragon and Choice of Broadsides. Both seem to also incorporate some RPG elements, but I’m not sure.

I think that Dusk World is probably the most interesting IF application on the Kindle, but there are a lot of possibilities. I wonder what sort of options might be available for non-text navigation. The point is fun while still within the realm of reading, as opposed to just straight up gaming. I’d think that IFs would be more appealing to the Kindle’s user base than checkers.

The Notebook

If you are using the Kindle as a reference on the job or in the classroom, having some sort of note-taking feature outside of annotation would be a logical next step. Despite that, the options I’ve found seem pretty unappealing. Not to mention that, because of the data fees, there’s no way to sync your work to somewhere on the web.

I’ve tried Google docs and it just did not seem to work. The Flash offering at Acrobat.com obviously doesn’t work either.

Once again, I think this is a nice opportunity for a web-based application formatted for the Kindle. Something that plugs into gDocs or another platform.

That being said, I do have one solution, which I use regularly. I run a WordPress blog with the P2 theme and though it isn’t exactly well formatted for use on the Kindle, once you zoom in and start typing away, it goes pretty smoothly. I use the site to regularly take notes.

It’s too bad that there are not better options out there. I know that a lot of authors seek a tool for writing that allows them to escape a distraction-prone computer and the Kindle would be a good candidate.

The Smart Map

The Kindle 3G runs on a wireless network, so I assume that geo-location is possible. It would be great (considering it works anywhere in the world and has a huge battery life) to see where you are on a map. Just think about being lost in Paris and having a whole week worth of battery power to figure out where to go.

However, I’m pretty sure the data use would be enormous. Unless people were willing to pay a subscription fee, this goes into the realm of the fantastic.

A Decent Music Player

You can load MP3s on your Kindle and listen to them. It’s a very cool feature and great for podcasts or music. The only problem is that there is no way to navigate. You can play or pause a track and you can skip to the next track. That’s it. It would be great if there was some sort of player application that would give you greater control.

Games

Oh yeah, and of course there are your standard games. Some of the Kindle games seem better then others. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t find this an interesting use of the platform.

That’s all I can think of now. What application would you want for your Kindle?

Related posts:

1. Announcing P2 for Kindle! A WordPress theme for notes and collaboration
2. The Browser Future of Interactive Fiction
3. Why the Kindle is my Swiss Army knife

Image via CrunchBase

Sometimes I’m afraid that the like button on Pandora may irrevocably change my station to play music that I don’t like. How can Pandora make its interface better?

I’m a big fan of Pandora online radio. It’s a clever concept and free music is always good. However, once I’ve set my channel and I get it playing the music I want, I tend to avoid fine tuning it.

The issue is that I don’t understand what liking a song can do to my channels. After spending time using Pandora, it seems that half of the stations I create end up playing the same music. Now, I start a channel, make a few likes and try not to do anything else, I even avoid disliking music.

Transparency is needed.

When hit the like button on Pandora it tells me about certain parts of the music, funny lyrics, strong piano line or something else, that influence my channel. I’m not sure to what degree these song elements effect my station nor do I know how it compounds with other times I’ve interacted with Pandora.

I’d do things much differently. It’s clear that there is a lot of complex musical math going on behind the scenes. I want to see that. When I like a song, I want to see what it adds to the channel in some sort of value system. It might make sense to apply RPG-style attributes to each channel. This way I know that if I like a specific song, I’m adding +5 Fast Piano, +2 Rock Guitar and +1 Joke Lyrics to my channel. As the music starts playing, I’d have a better understanding of what my choices mean for the type of music I’m going to hear and a better understanding of the underlying musical theories that Pandora runs on.

It’s important, when you are developing an interface for constant use like Pandora’s, to make sure that the interactions between the user and the program are transparent. It allows users to understand what they are doing and to gain a sense of ownership over their interactions. It’s hard to invest time in something that you don’t understand.

Here’s what I’d change:

• Make the statistics that each song would add or subtract from your channel transparent at each opportunity for interaction.
• Allow users to view the channel and see what values they have assigned.
• Allow users to take only some of the values from a song. For example, Tenacious D plays on many of my Pandora channels. Now I love The D, but I don’t really want them showing up on every channel. I should be able to subtract their humorous lyrics without losing points from awesome rock.
• Represent overall statistics on the profile home page.
• Provide publicly visible achievements for hitting certain levels positive or negative in any given category.
• The manual quick mix is pretty cool, but I’d also want to provide an overall mix, a channel generated from my profile’s total added statistics.

You may have noticed some ludological elements incorporated into this UI concept. To make it clear, every good interface needs game elements. Your users should have the opportunity to explore, accumulate and represent their interactions to others.

Your interface should always tell a story to the user, or provide the ability to create a narrative. A successful interface will have the user telling an interaction story. In this example it might go something like this:

Hey man, I was able to increase my overall profile with five more points to rock guitar and discovered just the right crappy songs to eliminate nu-metal. I took points out of steel drums, god knows how I got those. Then, I got the Classic Rocker achievement, because I had enough points in Rock Guitar and Freddie Mercury-style.

Not only does this style of interface make user interaction easier and enjoyable, but creating opportunities for your users to tell a story about your product is the best word of mouth marketing you can have.

Related articles

Related posts:

1. Remix Project [Assignment]
2. Partial Setlist for GH:Aerosmith Released
3. Remix Project Idea [Assignment]

If you read my blog back in its RWV days, you may recall my post about the need for player characters to speak and how a failure to do so, as in BioShock, was detrimental to the game.

It seems that I am not the only person to think so. I just stumbled upon a great story through Kotaku on the same subject.

I consider it audacious and unreasonable to think that video game story telling is so different that suddenly players will be unwilling to empathize with their character unless that character takes on their personality. I appreciate the potential of this new medium, but my experience has been that for now, the more we stick with good old fashioned story telling the better off everyone will be.

It is, overall, an excellent article on the topic. I recommend you read it.

Identification, Please.

Related posts:

1. No Gods, No Kings… No Men? The Player Character in BioShock
2. Character Portability and the USA Channel
3. Distad Characters – Facilitator Wai Wazad Pt. 4 [Exercise: Setting]

So, if you listen to podcasts, chances are you’re heard about this already. If you haven’t, here’s the deal:

This weekend, podcast publishing gets its first true test. Novel-podcaster Matthew Wayne Selznick has had his “podiobook” book (titled Brave Men Run) picked up by Swarm Press. According to the publisher, and the author himself, this will be is “the first novel with an initial simultaneous publication in paperback, five formats of e-book free of digital rights management restrictions, and free podcast audiobook (podiobook) editions.”

Even if that isn’t true, This will be the first podiobook to published novel conversion that has the whole community behind it. Selznick has been running ads all over the podcast universe. He also has a stable of high-level, well-known and respected podiobook and podcasting writers on his side. He has had authors J.C. Hutchins (The “7th Son” trilogy), Mur Lafferty (”Playing For Keeps”), Nathan Lowell (The “Golden Age of the Solar Clipper” novels), Matt Wallace (”The Next Fix”), J.R. Blackwell (Voices of Tomorrow), P.G. Holyfield (”Murder at Avedon Hill”), and Jared Axelrod (The Voice of Free Planet X) write short stories in his universe to help publicize the release.

Selznick will also come online at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow (Sunday) to stream video readings of the short stories, progress reports on his books sales and “show solidarity for everyone who buys the book from Amazon.com on that day.”

Selznick’s goal is to launch ‘the Podiobook that could’ to the top of Amazon’s charts this Sunday. No small task.

This isn’t just a clever marketing ploy (though it is that). Many writers continue to labor in relative obscurity when it comes to podiobooks, some of them quite good. If Selznick succeeds, this could push publishers to look towards podcasted books, and other novels of the new media, for future publication.

In other words, this is not just a test of the content of the podiobook, but of the community’s strength. This is an opportunity for podcasters and podcast listeners to show that they matter to the mainstream media. Not only that, it is an opportunity to really subvert the old media for the the cause of the new.

It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. If Selznick succeeds it could mean a whole new way of looking at publicizing and publishing books. It would also mean that a free release of a product can drive sales.

I’ll be on the bus back to Virginia for part of the day, but I’ll be watching. If you are looking to support Selznick, make your purchace on Sunday.

Related posts:

1. Media Collision Aftermath [Brave Men Run]
2. The Amazon Climb [Brave Men Run]
3. Online Distribution for New Media

I just completed work on my final project for English 344. It is the initial draft for the Merely Players universe, an idea that’s been brewing in the back of my head since I was in Cambridge this summer.

Check it out.

Related posts:

1. Remix Project [Assignment]
2. Remix Project Idea [Assignment]
3. Hello and Welcome

my body – a Wunderkammer – in this piece by Shelley Jackson, she seems to have left behind regular structure and form entirely, instead constructing connections formed to the graphic structure of her body, with links often hidden within each set of words within each graphical component. The structure destroys the drive within the piece, leaving anyone not wholly motivated by the principles of investigation un-driven to continue through the piece. Electronic Literature does not free the author from the need for a story, my body may be a narrative, but it is just barely so. Other pieces may have the strength to exist divorced from form and unified only by an idea, but in my opinion this piece lacks that. The result is that I, as the reader, did not feel motivated to follow through and click all the links in the piece.

Twelve Blue was an interesting concept, but beleaguered by a confusing a non-intuitive interface that both made navigation confusing and then sometimes obscured the very storytelling. The graphic navigation can sometimes skip both in time and storyline, making following the story very confusing. I believe that if I could decode the story, it would be something quite interesting, however it is very difficult to follow when the navigation is confusing.

Reagan Library is very interesting, the interface reminds me strongly of Myst. Unfortunately I lost out on the full experience, as the ability to click objects within the panorama did not work for me. However, I thought it was a remarkable and intriguing re-tasking of the QuickTimeVR panorama technology. I just wish it could have worked better.

Note, for some reason I was completely unable to get the links to download the z-machine based IFs to work in IE7. I had to use Opera instead.

Galatea is a z-code Interactive Fiction, it was fascinating. The interaction with the NPC as a I slowly was able to reveal parts of her background and her beliefs. It was even more interesting because you were able to reveal parts of your own character through talking with the NPC. The real shame is that just as elements were beginning to reveal themselves my iteration of the story ended.

Savoir-Faire is another z-code Interactive Fiction, this one is a bit more typical in that it is based around item use and puzzle solving. The unusual component comes in two non-standard commands, ‘Remember’ and ‘Link.’ These two commands allow a certain element into the narrative, the ability to more around in time without leaving the location you are in and the ability to create an extra reaction to your actions. In more conventional terminology, this means that you can now flashback, if you use the command correctly. The result is pretty interesting, I’ve been unable to complete the story yet, but thus far it has been fun.

Related posts:

1. Interactive Fiction
2. The Browser Future of Interactive Fiction
3. Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 1 [Assignment]

I completed chapter one of Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman today. Below are my notes.

Terms:

• Story
  
• Character
• Setting
• Backstory
• Cut scenes
• Scripted events
• In-Game Artifacts

The purpose of game narrative?

• Immersion
  
• Reward
• Identification

Words/Terms I didn’t know?

• “barks” – short interjections, most often said by NPCs, usually a large number of these are required for the entire game.
  
• iterative – in this case, a development strategy which allows for time to rework, revise, and improve elements of a system. In this case, referring to cut scenes.

Game development<->literature concept I should have thought of before:

• The integration of a classic style story arc into gameplay. Pg13: “In gaming, the challenges, fights, and puzzles get more and more intense until the climax, which is often rendered as a boss fight. After this the player is rewarded with denouement and, possibly, power ups.”
  
  • Bonus Example: Bioshock: Battles with little sisters then receiving EVE. Even better: The final boss fight is followed up with a classic literary-style denouement. Bioshock‘s extremely linier format provides it with a very literary-story concept and flow.

Game development<->literature concept I already know:

• The importance of maintaining the fictional dream. Pg17: “It’s worse than no good if the writing calls attention to itself, instead of the player, or it jerks the player out of the game’s fantasy by disrupting the narrative flow.”
  
• Forced failure works great in books, horribly in games. I knew that one, I’ve experienced it. *cough*darkforcesseries*cough* (pg18)

Thought-provoker: Pg17: (on long cut scenes, with reference to tense but long conversations) “…they are not playing, and that can be deadly to a game.”

• This sentence, partnered with the previous reference made me think of Fahrenheit. This was in many ways a classic mystery story and had the elements of these tense but long conversations. It was able to drive them along and keep the player paying attention by mapping certain conversational ploys or in-conversation actions to joystick movements. It occurs to me now just how excellent this concept would be on a motion sensitive controlled console like the Wii. Imagine having to jab in order to say something pointed, or physically pull back when you have to pull back in a conversation. If done properly, so that the game would require us to make the usual conversational motions and tics, it would add a lot of depth to a game and a console which is looking for real innovative use of a motion sensitive controller. The conversations would be driven by a player moving as if he is actually having a conversation.
  

Important to the Industry:

• The bit on handling a franchise on page 16.
  

Further Notes:

This chapter was more of an introduction than anything else. It still was quite interesting. Hopefully the rest of the text is as good as the stepping-off point.

Related posts:

1. Literature and the Human Brain Cloud [Notes]
2. Wasn’t The Shadow Really Lamont Cranston? [Notes]
3. Notes from Warren Spector’s "Next-Gen Storytelling"