Bill Wasik, I Bought Your Book! @10:22 AM
Dear Bill Wasik: I am totally convinced! I have now spent $9.99 on your book for my iPhone Kindle app. Hey. Also the interview thingie with Simon Dumenco was excellent. I heartily endorse that others should buy And Then There's This as well. Yours, The Awl. 2
The Nanostory and the Healthcare Propaganda War @10:20 AM
Bill Wasik, flash mob inventor/invigorator,and author of And Then There's This, is working to explain These Modern Times. His contention is that much of what passes for news is, obviously, roar and thunder. Current events explode in little bomb clusters of emotion-imbued waves of opinion—in part because the actual news is actually very difficult to understand. These "nanostories," he says, "serve as the lens through which we comprehend truly large, important, long-term stories." READ MORE 8
The Entire Problem With the Internet is Persona, But Really What's So Different Now? @9:23 AM
The Internet is a tough town, we have noticed before. Well, not a town; a fat cluster of towns pushed up against each other, organized (obviously) by language spoken, but still a place where you can easily hop from village to village. OMG it all sounds like that movie Avatar, which, by the way, according to Comic-Con attendees who saw a hefty chunk of it, will blow your mind. The biggest town problem, however, is being given a bit of an old-people-confusing airing on the op-ed page of the Times today, in a piece by smart guy and Harper's editor (and flash mob prankster) Bill Wasik: that you are not who you pretend to be on the Internet! READ MORE 28
Two Things To Read Regarding The Internet Being Free, And Work Also Being Free @3:51 PM
Two things to read! Why I Write For Free, which has to do somewhat with this Ben Kunkel n+1 recent piece about the experience of the Internet, which we could barely address except via LOLcat last week, but also about the current FUROR that apparently is raging about the state of unpaid labor in the online writing industry. (Agreed: It is bad when rich people cannot find room in their business plans to pay poor people!) And also here are some people talking about the Bill Wasik book, And Then There's This, which is about, its subtitle says, "How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture." Those people include web kingpin Anil Dash, who notes wisely: "I like music that makes me shake my ass. I like my memes to be fun, created by people who are enjoying what they do." 3
