Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Reading on the web.

Mostly I think that web is awful for reading. I now think I was wrong. Still suboptimal, but most definitely not impossible . Darn those designers!
It's President Obama's speech.
http://www.textflows.com/ObamaInaugurationFlow
After I posted this am, I found this in my Gmail.
Your readers may also be interested in some similar flows:
http://textflows.com/ObamaYesWeCanFlow
(the more inspirational of the two IMO)
http://textflows.com/MLKDreamFlow

To our newspaper publisher viewers:
Consider putting this link on your website. Then track who goes there. That will give you a sense of the 2 or 3% of your viewers are readers. Maybe it's more. Maybe it's less. At any rate, it will tell you the IP address they come from. They you might be able to sell them books with those long, complex stories. Keep open the newsprint for ads. Make some money from selling stuff.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shoutout Michael.

    Your readers may also be interested in some similar flows:
    http://textflows.com/ObamaYesWeCanFlow
    (the more inspirational of the two IMO)
    http://textflows.com/MLKDreamFlow

    BTW Dennis and I at TextFlows love the printed word, we both have homes stuffed with books and daily newspaper subscriptions. There's room for both, we are a different way to read...

    Tony

    PS Can you do be a favor and swap the link in your article for this one:
    http://www.textflows.com/ObamaInaugurationFlow

    ReplyDelete
  2. Our very own Obamaprompter! (couldn't help myself)

    Which is nice, and the forced rhythm is helpful for both comprehension and appreciation of the forms, but what I would really like to see is this speech, or similar, with a simultaneously developing graphic outline, with both content and literary devices differentiated and/or highlighted.

    For some conventional discussions of the speech, see
    http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/the-speech-the-experts-critique/

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Tony,
    Just curious. Are any educational systems (either K-12) or newspaper using textflow?

    If they're not, they probably don't get it yet...Or they are too busy in meetings blablablabla about teaching kids to read using the latest brand new X, that is being sold to someone on the school board, who mostly cares about whether someone else thinks they are jerk.

    Or they've drunk the kool-aid about Web 2.0 and twitter and e-learning.

    If there is any way I can help spread the word. Please get in touch.

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  4. An enhanced version of textflow would be GREAT in K-12! And not unusable in college. Think DDR for text.

    Or in lots foreign language learning applications.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's what I figure. Who knows maybe print salesman could have a new thing to sell.

    ReplyDelete