The Twitter Read-a-thon

[intertext]

Have you heard about "One Book, One Twitter"? If you follow Neil Gaiman, you will have, because his book, American Gods is the chosen book. The idea is to get all of Twitter reading one book and presumably tweeting about it. I'm skeptical, but I'm at least going to follow @1B1T2010 out of academic/professional interest and curiosity. I want to see if the tweets are universally banal, or if it's all RT's of @neilhimself, or what. Or maybe there'll be this amazing conversation, and it will be something that I can point to and say "see? look how cool this is"

I don't know if I can read American Gods, though I might try, again just to be part of the project. I bounced off it badly the first time I tried it, but do at least still have my copy.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be more excited if someone who already doesn't have mega PR coverage was chosen--and something new.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if the idea catches on, they could try some less well known writers and books in the future?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I dunno, my gut instinct is that Gaiman's fans will eagerly get on board, but as for everyone else? I doubt it. For something to go viral, there needs to be a more visceral, and immediate hook.

Of course, I could be 100% wrong. As usual. In any case, I feel that life is too short for Twitter, so I won't know how it goes.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

There was some kind of vote with quite a number of choices originally. I didn't participate, but was vaguely aware of it. I think if you go to the webpage linked from the @1B1T2010 page, it takes you to the list. Of course, Gaiman tweeted about it and encouraged people to vote for him by saying "don't vote for me."

You may hear about how it goes - I'll follow up if anything interesting comes of it.