WINKSITE-BESHER PRESS RELEASE

People scan the QR Code on each Manga Man t-shirt with their smartphone and a QR Code Reader App to be instantly transported into Manga Man 2.0’s multi-art dimensional universe that includes direct to mobile novel, original music soundtrack, book trailer, indie short film, .mp4 anthology of Japanese avant-garde Butoh dance performances, plus audio book and graphic novel-in-progress excerpts. QR Code Reader Apps are available for free at all smartphone App Stores.

New York, NY, February 3, 2011 — Two years after issuing the media-history making first edition of Philip K. Dick Award nominated author Alexander Besher ‘s futuristic novel The Manga Man, Winksite, a leading mobile content management and social networking software company whose solutions connect publishers to their audiences and audience members to each other, has released a transmedia upgraded edition of The Manga Man that goes online February 3, 2011. Manga Man 2.0 is available at: mangaman.mobi.

Widely heralded and praised upon its first release by the international mobile and technology press and by leading SF writers of the day, Besher’s tome is a 600-page alternative fantasy noir epic that’s set in the mid-21st century when the speed of media has overtaken the speed of light. The story features a half-digital, half-human “post-Zen” Butoh dancer-assassin whose mission is “to stop the warlords who plan to clone the universe.”

Dave Harper, Founder & CEO of Winksite, says “Working with Besher and his creative team is a natural fit for us. In the past, we’ve collaborated with a wide group of writers and progressive thinkers including Stanford law professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig who inspired us to launch the Creative Commons Library, sci-fi author Cory Doctorow, horror meister David Wellington, and Internet ‘Smart Mobs’ guru Howard Rheingold. Besher’s futuristic vision strikes us as being not only timely but timeless.”

For his part, futurist and author Alexander Besher says, “I’m truly speechless to be working with someone of Dave Harper’s caliber and mobile know-how. I write about the future of media; he is the future of media. In fact, when I was invited to speak about Manga Man at the Microsoft-sponsored Mobile Camp NYC3 conference to a friendly and enthusiastic audience of geeks and programmers, I had to hide my now deceased ten-year old five lb. Nokia cell-phone whose look-and-feel of a real phone I shall miss in comparison to the little throwaway tinker-toy phones of today. People sometimes forget that even the future is based on tradition. I guess that I’m a conservative radical free-thinker and rebel.”

Among Manga Man 2.0’s upgraded features are a compelling sneak peek at The Black Tao, a loosely linked sequel in Besher’s “Dance of Darkness” trilogy. Also part of the new brew, reader’s can sip at his first ever short story, “The Last Guest,” an eco-Apocalyptic tale that is the Editor’s Pick in the February 2011 issue of the distinguished horror zine, thehorrorzine.com. Besher is currently working on a brand new trilogy of novels that he has dubbed “Kabbalah noir” featuring supernatural suspense thriller horror tales. Completed are the first title, “The Clinging” (available as a script and novel) which features a rare rave blurb, the first in more than four decades, by the master horror writer William Peter Blatty, author of the landmark book and film The Exorcist. Besher has just finished writing the second title in the series, The Night of the Golem. He is represented by Barry Krost Management in Hollywood and by literary agent Steve Troha at Folio Literary Management in New York. Most recently, Besher has founded a San Francisco-based transmedia start-up called cloudzero which made its stealth “tell no secrets” debut at the Sundance Film Festival 2010.

About Alexander Besher
Born in China, raised and educated in Japan, Alexander Besher is a San Francisco-based author, journalist and novelist. He is the author of “The Pacific Rim Almanac” (HarperCollins, ’91), and the “Rim” trilogy of futuristic thrillers including the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated “Rim” (HarperCollins ’94; HarperPrism, ’95); “Mir,” and “Chi” (Simon & Schuster, ’98 and ’99). He served as editor of the Chicago Review literary quarterly at the University of Chicago , was contributing editor to InfoWorld magazine, and wrote “Pacific Rim” (Chronicle Features), an internationally syndicated weekly column covering business, technological and social trends in the Asia-Pacific region. His forthcoming novel “The Manga Man” is the first title in his new “Dance of Darkness” trilogy of alternative noir fantasy novels. His novels have been translated into over a dozen languages and film-optioned. Recently, he has been writing screenplays and television scripts.

About Winksite
Winksite is a leading mobile content management and social networking software company whose solutions connect publishers to their audiences and audience members to each other. For more information visit winksite.com

A diverse group of panelists shared their ideas on how to leverage social media for creating sense of community within their local areas, for increasing awareness about social issues, and for fundraising during disasters, etc.

Some of the tools that resonated with the group were:

• Grameen Foundation’s MoTeCH Program using test messaging subscriptions to inform pregnant mothers in Ghana of important antenatal and neonatal information.
• Ushahini’s mashup of SMS and Google maps to to report violent acts against citizens in Kenya during a disputed election.
• Winksite.com – a free service that creates a mobile community website in just minutes and comes with it’s own QR code to instantly connect with users through smartphone technology.

Source & Full Article: http://blogs.cisco.com/socialmedia/social-media-for-social-good/

Thank you InfoWorld for including Winksite.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/escape-the-app-store-4-ways-create-smartphone-web-apps-436?page=0,2

If you’re interested in creating an online community based around your mobile site, check out Winksite, a web app for building a mobile community for your website.

It even generates your very own QR code, a two-dimensional code readable by mobile devices with QR scanners and used to automatically pull up text, photos, videos, music and URLs. There are many ways to use QR codes for small business marketing. You can print your QR code on your business card, print ads and other branding materials, and when mobile users want to visit your mobile site, they just need to use their mobile device cameras to scan the QR code.

If you would like to generate a QR code without having to use Winksite, check out this free web-based tool called QR-Code Generator.

Source:

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/8-tools-for-easily-creating-a-mobile-version-of-your-website-1/?linknav=us-openforum-search-article-link1

2001

• Winksite begins.

2002

• U.S. Provisional Application Serial. No. 60/389,430 on Jun. 18, 2002 is filed.

2003

• Patent Application No. 10/464,526 filed June 18, 2003 claiming the priority of U.S. Provisional Application Serial Number. 60/389,430 filed Jun. 18, 2003
• Winksite begins blogging with, FUSE Launches “FUSE On Your Mobile”, Jun. 2003
• Moblogging for the Masses: Part 2 by Mark Frauenfelder – Dec. 2003
• Winksite Adds To Geolocation Features – Dec. 2003
• Mobilizing The Masses With “Location Aware” Applications – Dec. 2003
• The Winksite Difference: Part 1 – Dec. 2003

2004

• Boing Boing mobile from Winksite Launches – Jan. 2004
• The Winksite Story – Feb. 2004
• The Winksite Difference: Part 2 – Feb. 2004
• Winksite Ranks Among The Top Applications In Openwave’s New “Mobile Applications Directory” – Mar. 2004
• Winksite Adds Creative Commons to Mobile Blogging” – Mar. 2004
• Winksite Adds Enhanced Mobile Site Personalization, “Show Your Colours” – Mar. 2004
• The Future Of “Roll Your Own” Mobile Revenues: Part 1 – Apr 2004
• Present And Future Uses Of Feeds & Syndication On Mobile Phones – Sep. 2004
• Winksite Overrun With Zombie Madness – Sep. 2004
• Mobile Feed Reader With A Twist – Oct. 2004
• Creative Commons Licensed Library Launches – Delivering Mobile Editions Of Books To Phones, Nov. 2004
• Winksite featured in The NYT & International Herald Tribune, “A Library And Cinema In Your Pocket” – Dec. 2004

2005

• O’Reilly’s MAKE: Zine Launches Mobile Site with Winksite – Jun. 2005
• Winksite Helps Sponsor First series of BlogHer Foundation Sponsorships – Jun. 2005
• Politics to Go: How Mobile Technology Empowers Just-in-Time Politics – Sep. 2005
• O’Reilly’s Nokia Smartphone Hacks Acknowledges Winksite – Sep. 2005
• Winksite presents at MobileMonday New York Event at the Associated Press – Sep. 2005
• Politics To Go: Winksite Mobile Case Studies – Oct. 2005
• Direct-To-Consumer Mobile Portals & Winksite – Oct 2005
• Warner Launches Mobile Portal For The Veronicas – Mash-Up Of Branded Content With Social Media –  Oct 2005
• Mobile Social Software: WINKsite Presents at Cool School – Nov 2005

2006

• Winksite Metro Gatherings: Chennai & Mumbai – Feb. 2006
• Winksite Metro Gatherings: Seattle – Feb. 2006
• One World. No Borders. : Metroblogging Network “Mobilized” By Winksite Across 42 Cities – Feb 2006
• Upcoming.org Understands The Value Of “Mobile-Friendly” – Feb. 2006
• An Open Letter to Google: “Page adapted for mobile phone?” Please stop now, you are crippling sites, not adapting pages. – Mar. 2006
• Mainstream America is Ready for Bar Codes – Converging “Realspace” and “Mobilespace” – Mar 2006
• WINKsite: fusing the mobile and Web worlds through barcodes – May 2006
• Winksite in the NYT: Software Out There. The Internet is entering its Lego era. – Apr. 2006
• Winksite in TechCrunch: “…the multi-featured mobile hydra Winksite” – Sep. 2006
• One World. No Borders. 2.5 Billion Connected People. – Nov. 2006
• Under The Radar: Mobility: Winksite Presentation – Nov. 2006
• CNET/Rafe Needleman – “My vote for the best of the bunch for mobile content today is Winksite.” – Nov. 2006
• Winksite Continues to Grow Daily. Upgrade Scheduled – Nov. 2006
• Winksite Releases WordPress Wii Edition Plugin (WiiPress v1.3) – Dec. 2006

2007

• Winksite Releases WordPress Ultimate Gamer’s Pack – Jan. 2007
• Fest Mob – A Mobile Social Experiment – Jan. 2007
• The Blog Herald – “Winksite is amazing and an excellent way to create a rich mobile site. It is packed with features and possibilities. The service that Winksite provides is cutting edge and allows for easy mobile site and community creation. Best of all it is ad free and will cost you nothing! With its future movement towards more social features and the promise of an easier interface, it is positioned well for the next gen in mobile site creation.” – Jan 2007
• Preview: MobileOK Templates – Mar. 2007
• See You at MobileCampNYC – May 2007
• Scripting News/David Winer, “I thought Winksite could be the perfect first-peer in Twitter’s coral reef.” – May 2007
• Winksite Nominated for CNET’s Webware 100 Awards. – May 2007
• Mobile SEO at Mobile Monday NY – Jun. 2007
• Winksite Releases Major Upgrade – Love the Mobile Web. – Jun. 2007
• InformationWeek Interviews Winksite Founder on Mobile SEO – Aug 2007
• Mobile Bar Code Camp – Sep. 2007
• Winksite presents at Mobile Web Americas 2007: Mobile Communities: What Are They And How Do I Make Them Work For Me? – Sep. 2007
• Winksite Presenting at NY Web 2.0 Meetup – Sep 2007
• Ashley Tisdale’s On The Mobile Web – Or – How What I Do For A Living Finally Impressed My Gradeschooler – Sep. 2007
• Vodafone UK is Clearly Wrong – The User-Agent String Issue – Sep. 2007
• Save the Moble Web from Vodafone. Actions to Take. – Sep. 2007
• PCWorld/IDG Article, “Vodafone Tech Change Stings Mobile Web Designers (Winksite)”(First brick laid for a walled garden?) – Sep. 2007
• The New Walled Garden? – Sep 2007
• Yahoo! Are You Listening? – Oct. 2007
• Tutorials for Creating a Mobile Website at Winksite – Oct. 2007
• Winksite – Monetize Your Mobile Site with Advertising from Google AdSense or Admob. – Oct. 2007
• On Making Bank with Admob – Oct. 2007
• Let’s Meet Up at MobileCamps in LA, SF, or NY. – Oct. 2007
• Winksite Launches on Helio Portal (starting with BoingBoing & The Metroblogging Network – Q3/Q4, 2007
• Bango, Mobile Marketing Foundation (MMA), dotMobi, and Winksite found “I Love Mobile Web” – Q4, 2007

2008

• Winksite is Listed in Apple’s Web App Directory- Jan. 2008
• 3Next Offers Winksite on Portal– Mar. 2008
• Rules for Responsible Reformatting: A Developer Manifesto by Luca Passani (w/Winksite Contributions) – Mar. 2008
• Mowser is Dead. The Mobile Web is Alive. …And Here Are the “Mobile Analytics” to Support It. – Apr. 2008
• Nokia Conversations Launches Mobile Version With Winksite – Apr. 2008
• The Manga Man Premiere – Winksite teams up with Sci-Fi Author Alexander Besher In Meta-Multimedia First – Oct. 2008
• MobileCampNYC3 – Call for Barcode Enthusiasts & Developers – Oct. 2008

2009

• United States Patent 7,599,983 awarded to Wireless Ink Corporation – October 6, 2009

Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second Language Learning by Michael Thomas, 2009 “Winksite allow users to build their own blogs, chat forums, conduct polls and create journals. It is truly user-friendly…” | Learn more.

Mobile Internet For Dummies by Michael J. O’Farrell, John R. Levine, Jostein Algroy, James Pearce, Daniel Appelquist, 2008 “ Designing colorful mobile sites with Winksite.” | Learn more. Mac Life Magazine, 2007 “You can trick out your site with “channels” including a blog (either one hosted on

Winksite or a feed of your existing blog), RSS feeds, surveys, …” | Learn more.

Nokia smartphone hacks by Michael Juntao Yuan, 2005 | Learn more.

Hybrid Learning and Education by Joseph Fong, Reggie Kwan, Fu Lee Wang, 2008 “Do-it-yourself: Free Mobile 2.0 sites for teaching purposes A popular and free Mobile 2.0 site builder for teaching can be found at Winksite …” | Learn more.

Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education by Liz Kolb, 2008 “Winksite is another Web 2.0 resource that allows anyone to build a mobile-friendly …” | Learn more.

The Everything Blogging Book: Publish Your Ideas, Get Feedback, and Create by Aliza Sherman Risdahl, 2006 | Learn more.

Digital Engagement: Internet Marketing That Captures Customers and Builds Brand Loyalty, by Leland Harden, Bob Heyman, 2009 “Google has a page creator (www.pages.google.com) that works in XHTML, and  independent developers such as www.winksite.com offer community and support. …” | Learn more.

Jump point: how network culture is revolutionizing business by Tom Hayes, 2008 ”… and the ability to build a mobile Web page using a service like Winksite, and you have the best of all worlds.” | Learn more.

Information tomorrow: reflections on technology and the future of public and academic libraries by Rachel Singer Gordon, 2007 | Learn more.

From taptu’s blog, “taptology”:

In this survey powered by Winksite, our respondents provided us with insight on what they want on the mobile web and how they use Taptu and, armed with that knowledge, we can continue to develop a product that meets their needs.

The idea is to have a dedicated track for all things related to QR Codes, Barcodes, RFID, and Physical Hyperlinking in general. For this track we will have 10 sessions dedicated to one room (although it is still possible to use free spots on the main grid.) I’m helping curate this track so please send an email introducing yourself if you would like to hold a session to dharper [AT] wirelessink [DOT] com. Also be sure to register below.

Want to attend this Mobile Camp? Sign up Here!