I’m thinking about Live Tweeting books. For example, I’m looking forward to reading Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth soon, after passing it over for months. Not because I was daunted or thought it would be disappointing, but because I can only read it for the first time once. I can’t be reading too many other things, I can’t be so busy it takes me forever, and I should be in the right frame of mind.
I usually underline and often annotate my books as I read, so I was thinking of tweeting quotes and general thoughts, adorned with hashtags and the usual accoutrements. Thinking of a short, generic hash prefix that I can add an identifying word to. For example, #LTB for Live Tweeting Books, and then a key word from what I’m reading. #LTBmirth, or #LTBfeverpitch or #LTBlonelystreetnoirgenreandmasculinity
Ok maybe some things I read aren’t exactly suitable for this sort of exercise. In fact, I don’t think any sentence from that last book would fit within the 140 character limit. But I am just spitballing here, so:
What are your thoughts? Would you be interested in following my feed, or doing the same with whatever you’re reading right now? Do you have a better hashtag idea, or suggestions for what books I should tweet?
Melanie Killingsworth
I’ve a love/hate relationship with live-tweeting any media consumption. On the one hand, it can turn into an amazing sort of group enjoyment, especially with a well-publicized hashtag. I often encounter this during episodes of the ABC sitcom Modern Family.
On the other hand, it’s a distraction. For things that I really want to savor, I shut off all tech entirely. If I had children, I’d surely shut them off during Downton Abbey, as well.
Where I’d hesitate to recommend live-tweeting with books is that you can’t truly do both at once. With TV (and movies not watched in the theater), you can keep listening during the 15 seconds it takes to tweet. With books, I feel like you’d have to put one down, tweet, and then pick it back up.
And this die-hard Wharton fan doesn’t want her interrupted thus.
Wharton (being top of my stack and the book I’m currently most excited about) is probably a poor first pick. It’s definitely interruptive to stop reading to tweet, so I suppose what will most likely happen (at least with something as engrossing and sacred as Wharton) is: I will read, underline and annotate as usual, and then go back through later and tweet, so as not to sully my actual reading time.
You roundaboutly bring up the fact that – unlike TV where even if we’re in different time zones, use TiVo, or wait until it’s online / the box set comes out, there’s a generalized standard time where everyone ‘should have watched’ – there’s no real time for classics, other than ‘already.’ I am appalled it’s taken me this long to read House of Mirth, but then again I’m sure I’ve read things that others are trying to get around to. That would make picking and choosing which books to tweet far more complicated.
This was like a mini point/counterpoint. I like it.
Buy nook/kindle.
Use annotations to liveblog book directly from the “book” itself.
???
Profit!
Game, set, match, Sir Nicholas!
Not that you’ve convinced me to make the switch, but it was well played.
Also, it’s simply a great idea, though my formatting for notes versus Tweets may be different, I think putting a Tweet-specific annotation function on said Nook/Kindle would indeed be useful and profitable. Now, do I have any software writing friends . . .
Realistically, it’s actually a terrible idea, but I’ll take whatever ins I can get to suck others into my techno-trap. (That sounds rather evil. Oops.)
My nook has a “Share” button on it anytime you highlight a word (which can be expanded to a selection), but appears to only be valid for books bought directly from Barnes and Noble (ie not available for downloaded from public library or *ahem* other sources), so I have no clue how it works.
Either way, of the current models, you’re limited in different ways.
1) eInk Reader, Physical Keyboard: Selecting a passage requires using up/down/left/right arrows which is slow and kind of annoying, depending on how often you do it. (Kindle Keyboard model)
2) eInk Reader, Touchscreen: Selection of passages is easier, but touchscreen input without visual feedback (due to delays on eInk updates) is somewhat difficult.
3) Color LCD Reader: Selection and typing is just as easy as on a smartphone or other table, but reading on a backlit screen for long periods of time is not as comfortable as reading on an eInk screen (which is either as good as, or better than, printed paper).
Let me be clear: by ‘great idea’ I meant ‘idea you could suck tons of consumers into.’ And, apparently, use to build your evil techoempire (TM).
I still wouldn’t use it, and to be used to direct tweet you couldn’t (like I stated) use the same formatting, or whatever it is that’s supposed to simulate writing on a page. (You know what looks and feels like pen on paper? Pen on paper!)
I wasn’t aware there’s not an eInk/touch/keyboard/tablet combination out there. I’d say that’s what you should turn your talents towards instead, but I’m sure a few thousand people are already on it. I’m sure I will be able to ignore their new invention as well as I ignore the current eReaders.
I would like to point out that reading on a backlit screen with the brightness turned down is comparable to reading paper, with the added benefit of being able to do so in dim subway stations.
I would also like to point out that Nicholas needs no encouragement to be evil.
Realistically, I don’t actually want an eReader with a combination of all four features. I have an eReader to (gasp) read, so input methods that are slow and a little clunky are perfectly fine to me. Mine is the touchscreen because I’m more likely to use directed input (mostly looking up word definitions, since I like to do that) than to type, and eliminating the keyboard necessarily allows the design to become more compact/lighter, which I prefer. The only true “feature” that’s missing from the current batch of eInk devices that I’d like is using instead of the current ones, something like a pixel Qi screen – essentially merging “eInk” and “backlit LCD” into one, with a toggle-able switch to allow you to turn on backlighting if you want it (dim bus/subway/nighttime bedroom), or to turn it off and use eInk (insanely high battery life/usable in direct sunlight), even in color.
And Heather, this is true, I don’t. It comes naturally, and I have to regularly remind myself not to be evil. It works around 70% of the time.
That makes sense.
When I was a child and had not such technology in car / dark bedroom, I used things such as: car lights behind our car, tunnels, flashlights, nightlights. After all my flashlights for under-the-cover reading were confiscated, I *may* have encouraged my little brother’s fear of the dark so he would fuss and my parents would leave the hall light on, thereby allowing me to sneak out of bed and stand in my doorway reading until I could hear them head for bed.
What I’m trying to say is, I sympathize with evil and deviousness.