Making Newspapers out of Newspapers. And the new serendipity

Making newspapersout of newspapers••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

and the new serendipity••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••Chris Thorpe, September 11th 2010, London@jaggeree

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I really rather like newspapers

Actually, that’s not true.

I love them.

They’re wonderful.

Wonder & magic. Every day. $1.00 ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

A personal illustration.

I’m really quite surprised, I only thought you could use this speech bubble shape for things people had said on #twitter

1960sMan

In 1998 I travelled to New York. Photo Kriston Lewis

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bear with it, there is a point to this story, it will get somewhere soon. Honest. It will. It really will. Somewhere about how unexpected things will suddenly emerge out of nowhere and transform your life, either by telling you about things you had no idea you wanted to know about, or in this case about just the sort of thing you really wanted to know about, but wouldn’t have a clue where it was.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87634257@N00/255224254/sizes/z/in/photostream/

It’s more fun to compute...

Kraftwerk

MUSIC

Hammerstein Ballroom, June 1998

In a wonderful moment of pure chance I found myself next to a hip-hop fan and before the concert we had a fascinating conversation about how Kraftwerk had influenced New York hip-hop, with me telling him of the influences on the UK techno scene and also on Detroit house.

Through happenstance of seating (proximity) and a shared interest we each learned. I now can’t hear tracks such as Planet Rock without thinking of him

magic

SoHo Grand Hotel

TRAVEL

310 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013

Haven’t stayed here in years, but very good restaurant and excellent cocktails, rooms could be a lot bigger though (although I was in the cheapest ones). Very lovely and relaxing. As long as you’re not on the side of the hotel facing the five way junction.

Most memorable moment, checking in just as Massive Attack were checking out. I felt we could have shared a moment. I was wrong.

Reading the New York Times when I flopped tired onto my bed made me immediately go outside and do the most obvious thing you rarely do in New York and look up.

Whiteread’s water tower is like a beacon in daylight sky.

The first thing that strikes you about Rachel Whiteread’s monumental water tower is how it seems to pull in the sun and radiate it back over the SoHo skyline. It literally glows,

A perfect cast of the iconic New York water towers in pure crystal clear resin, the tower is possibly one of Whiteread’s most simple, yet complex pieces. Not only does the object represent the negative space of the water tower, it mimics the interior contents of the vessel, encouraging you to imagine a tower, full to the brim, and then stipped of it’s outer jacket. Frozen in space and time.

Wonder

But, I worry

What if they disappear? I’d be lost in many ways.

There is a reason why they do what they do.

2 in fact.

CURATION

1754 (but rare before 20c.), coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92)in a letter to Mann (dated Jan. 28); he said he formed it from thePersian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose heroes"were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." The name is from Serendip, an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Skt. Simhaladvipa  "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Serendipitous formed c.1950.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

serendipity (sɛrənˈdɪpɪtɪ)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity

there are precise mechanics at play

2 at least...

GAMEYNESS

Finishability

New York Times Weekend EdtionChances of buying

Chances of finishing

Chances of finishing unaided

“The weekend edition is the end of level boss of newspapers, there is almost no chance of vanquishing it unless you play in two player co-operative mode”

Progress bars

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Mass of Paper moves

from right hand to left✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

Pristine smooth pages become crumpled

Pristine smooth pages become crumpled

Neat stack becomes shuffled

Neat stack becomes shuffle d

Neat stack becomes shuffl de

Neat stack becomes shuf defl

Neat stack becomes shu deflf

Neat stack becomes sh deflfu

Neat stack becomes sh u ffl ed

Neat stack becomes sh u ffl ed

Neat stack becomes sh u ffl ed

Finishability

makes us read everything(for fear of missing out)

JUXTAPOSITION

It’s all about proximity

THINGS YOU KNOW YOU WANT

Serendipity in newspapers is so much about physical proximity on the printed page. It’s not just newspapers, radio does this too. As do music compilations. Things you already know about and are interested in, throug the sheer physicality of the objects and through curatorial design are placed next to things you either knew about, but weren’t previously interested in, or things you never knew existed.

Ooh, look at that, I never knew aboutthat, tell me more.

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT

See, and now you’re reading it and you’re either not interested and have moved on, or you’re reading it intently and have either found something new to love or to learn about.

what else does this?

The new serendipity••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••but is it really?••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Well yes and no, these folks are filters of me, I choose them and select them for what they bring to me. Obviously they bring more than just links to cool stuff and Coatseian point at things links, they bring conversation and friendship and wonder.

But they are a filter, a facet of me. And are this not truly serendipitous. What is though?

Tweetie. Sometime around Friday lunchtime. Screenshot, models own.

Chris Thorpe, Friday 10th September 12pm. RIBA Cafe. || 51.521321 , -0.144871

Clay visits The Guardian, gets asked a semi flippant question involving the phrase “Chatroulette for News”. Fortunately gives a serious answer. Photo Joi Ito

The question was from your’s truly and was a serious one about where the new serendipity came from in the light of my thoughts about filtering on the previous page.

His answer was that yes, we should build Chatroulette for News, but that also he thought it was friends of friends, which was my suspicion too.

Dan Vydra. Pythonista and creator of The Random Guardian. Photo Dan Vydra

Faster than I could get out of a meeting to do something far less elegant, Dan had made it. And deployed it and everyone was grinning. In the next 24 hours people were fighting off addictions to randomly delivered news and discovering all sorts of wonderful things.

Internet caught up in strange addiction to random news stories

FriendsThe people I’m friends with, my filter have similar intereststo me, some personal, some professional.

They are facets or filters of me,I may have already seen whatthey share and they’re too closeto be totally serendipitous.

They also know me and will sometimes gift me links and cuttings out of kindness. These will largely be about shared interests.

Illustration: Chris Thorpe. Neither I or my friends are drawn to scale, it just feels that way.

Friends of friendsAre farther out, their shared interests with my friends may be part of why I find my friends interesting. Some of these people will share things of extreme interest to me and somtimes will share things that I don’t even know I’m interested in yet. They’re less a filter of me.

Ooh, you’re interesting,

why don’t I know you yet

Footnote: Friends of friends also not to scale.

Chirp HackdayTECHNOLOGY AND TRAVEL

San Francisco

A day, sitting on a very uncomfortable picnic bench (although it did have network connectivity) or sitting at a hotel desk when I got too numb to sit on the picnic bench any more.

Coding: 12 hoursCoffee drunk: 4-7 cups (went a bit hazy after 4)Muffins eaten: 2-ishCPU hours on Google AppEngine: 49 hoursTask queue items: about 25,000 (had to ask for more)

Hackday

Seating

Discovering a volcano had messed up your travel plans

A hackday. With picnic benches. Does not want.Photo Laughingsquid

How do they make that?

Man (or woman) beams thought of what to share at Twitter

Twitter beams to man (or woman) what their friend had beamed at them.

Man beams thoughts at computer to write code to decode who shares what and makes newspaper out of it.

How do they make that?

get followsStringList

How do they make that?

get followsget followsStringList

Sharded StringList

How do they make that?

get followsget follows

get follows

StringList

Sharded StringListSharded Fulltext

How do they make that?

get followsget follows

get follows

StringList

Sharded StringListSharded Fulltext

get sharesString

How do they make that?

get followsget follows

get follows

StringList

Sharded StringListSharded Fulltext

get sharesString

Find a route back, from right to left

How do they make that?

get followsget follows

get follows

StringList

Sharded StringListSharded Fulltext

get sharesString

Find a route back, from right to left

How do they make that?

get followsget follows

get follows

StringList

Sharded StringListSharded Fulltext

get sharesString

Find a route back, from right to left

ooh, MAGIC

THE FUTURE

Newspaper atom checklist

InkPaperServer powerPrinting pressLinks to contentContent

✓✓ ✓ ✓ ✓✗

An enormous “without who this would have been impossible” to...