I was a relative latecomer to the idea of a twitter book club. I read your blog entry on this subject with great interest. Anne, I agree with your fundamental points about why it is likely to fail.
When I got enthused about the idea of such a club, I tried to think how it could work. You might remember I proposed a hashtag #TBkClub. That's 7 characters only [or 9 if you include a space plus the #]. #TwitterBookClub is 17 characters out of the precious 140, but it has the virtue of being easily remembered.
Mine was a mistake, because it was not easy enough to remember. My hashtag is useless in that case.
Still, that isn't the real problem. Ten more characters makes little difference. It's impossible unless you're a master of haiku to say anything worthwhile about a big topic in a short sentence, and even then you'd have to be Basho.
As well, not everyone is savvy about how to use hashtags. They don’t always know that if you put #TBkClub in the search field of their Twitter program, it will create a line of tweets solely under that hashtag.
Also, we're all doing other things. There are several books open to discussion and as a Denis-come-lately I've read only one of them. In fact, I know only Mister Pip. Some who are interested have managed to get part way through a particular book. That's life. Most of us are too old or irreverent to be told to stand in the naughty corner, especially when we have valid reasons for not making the time to sit down and enjoy that book.
There are probably only a couple of ways it could work. Here's one.
I've created this new blog (the one you're reading now!) – http://thereadingroom7.blogspot.com.au/ – that, if the idea has legs, someone else will need to take over well before my Use-By date has gone. A willing person, perhaps with Blogger experience, can take it over at any time as curator. I'm just the builder, though it needs very few, if any furnishings to work.
I'm using this piece as a sample posting, keeping it very simple.
The comments section is open to all. For this blog, it's really the powerhouse section. For the sake of simplicity, for those without Google or other accounts, it may work best if you use the Anonymous option to comment, and just sign it at the end of the comment however you like (e.g., with your twitter identity?)
All you'd have to do then is post a message to Twitter that you've added a comment. Your comment can be identified individually, but I won't go into that now.
It's quite simple using cut and paste for the curator to make a new posting of any comment/book review, if required, so it has its own identity for further comment.
What this does is to give anyone a fair word length to comment, or write a short book review.
Clear as mud?
Ask a question as a comment!
When I got enthused about the idea of such a club, I tried to think how it could work. You might remember I proposed a hashtag #TBkClub. That's 7 characters only [or 9 if you include a space plus the #]. #TwitterBookClub is 17 characters out of the precious 140, but it has the virtue of being easily remembered.
Mine was a mistake, because it was not easy enough to remember. My hashtag is useless in that case.
Still, that isn't the real problem. Ten more characters makes little difference. It's impossible unless you're a master of haiku to say anything worthwhile about a big topic in a short sentence, and even then you'd have to be Basho.
As well, not everyone is savvy about how to use hashtags. They don’t always know that if you put #TBkClub in the search field of their Twitter program, it will create a line of tweets solely under that hashtag.
Also, we're all doing other things. There are several books open to discussion and as a Denis-come-lately I've read only one of them. In fact, I know only Mister Pip. Some who are interested have managed to get part way through a particular book. That's life. Most of us are too old or irreverent to be told to stand in the naughty corner, especially when we have valid reasons for not making the time to sit down and enjoy that book.
There are probably only a couple of ways it could work. Here's one.
I've created this new blog (the one you're reading now!) – http://thereadingroom7.blogspot.com.au/ – that, if the idea has legs, someone else will need to take over well before my Use-By date has gone. A willing person, perhaps with Blogger experience, can take it over at any time as curator. I'm just the builder, though it needs very few, if any furnishings to work.
I'm using this piece as a sample posting, keeping it very simple.
The comments section is open to all. For this blog, it's really the powerhouse section. For the sake of simplicity, for those without Google or other accounts, it may work best if you use the Anonymous option to comment, and just sign it at the end of the comment however you like (e.g., with your twitter identity?)
All you'd have to do then is post a message to Twitter that you've added a comment. Your comment can be identified individually, but I won't go into that now.
It's quite simple using cut and paste for the curator to make a new posting of any comment/book review, if required, so it has its own identity for further comment.
What this does is to give anyone a fair word length to comment, or write a short book review.
Clear as mud?
Ask a question as a comment!
