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neovelleron PenFM: Fall back in love with writing via your terrible friends

For one, google docs has a free-form dynamic that doesn't really prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work. PenFM, like its predecessor Neovella, enforces a turn-based writing collaboration. But that's entirely just in terms of how it differs from GDocs in the sense of sharing the production of content.

Collaboration in PenFM happens in another, more powerful way: the ability to react to parts of a story with simple likes and more thorough commenting. Imagine having written a story, and now you have to send it out to friends & peers to review and give feedback on. Would you really rather have a back-and-forth over IM, constantly having to find the part they're referring to? On PenFM, they just click the section, type a comment, and you get notified to go take a look at what they wrote. It's asynchronous.

neovelleron PenFM: Fall back in love with writing via your terrible friends

http://www.pen.fm/read/A-Chance-Autumn-Encounter-PNefec68b4f...

Demo of our reading experience

neovelleron PenFM: Fall back in love with writing via your terrible friends

Yeah, the video was designed in a way to capture the experience rather than the tech. What isn't fully exposed:

- what you see is what you get. whenever you want, you can download the story in epub, mobi, or pdf format. while you might have to pay initially, you keep the story itself for any future download at each stage of its development in any format.

- writing is in realtime. you can see what others write, google doc style.

- content discovery is an enormous sell point here. you can write in gdocs all you want, but will just anyone be able to find and read and comment on it? we make stories accessible to the entire future pen.fm community to share and enjoy.

- we can update you on stories that you've subscribed to, to let you know anything from the fact that it's updated, or the section added itself.

- does anyone really enough shuffling back and forth between word/gdocs, chat, and forums?

- and more. hope that's good for now. :)

neovelleron PenFM: Fall back in love with writing via your terrible friends

Thanks for posting this, edwardog! Glad someone felt compelled to.

I'm the guy behind PenFM. AMA.

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

After some thought, I have decided to revamp our logo: http://i.imgur.com/AkEyD.png

What do you guys think?

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

I'm not going to argue with you--we have a better service. Would you mind sending me a URL to an image of your octopus? He seems to be in hiding.

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

Thanks, I tried soooooo hard!

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

That's a very good point. I've long considered tracking last-loaded position and using local storage to reload the last-unloaded scrollTop position. I could simply track that on the sidebar collapse to maintain it. Good feedback! Thank you!

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

You guys really did create a wonderful UX for a very separate market segment. Admittedly, we did draw some conceptual inspiration from your reader. In my defense, I will say that UX/UI is very constrained by a set number of factors which make "sidebars" necessary/obvious/essential and the organization of them preferable over other organization possibilities (TOC on left, misc on right). I'll admit that you executed this arrangement visually much better than I did, in my attempt not to scalp.

I'm a big fan of Inkling, and you guys make me wish I was still in school so I could use your reader. Major props.

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

Good call, and easy enough. Added spacebar support live, and the scroll should be twice as fast as previous. Let me know if that's more livable. Thanks!

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

I'm a little baffled by this report, but I don't at all suspect it's inaccurate. I'm on the same version of Chrome on OSX on a macbook air (where I developed the custom scrollbar). Programmatically, I'm using the "scroll wheel"'s delta increment to determine the distance to scroll--the same amount in both directions. If anyone with relevant experience developing JS interaction with the scroll wheel has any hints or related knowledge, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for the thorough feedback and videos. Looking forward to making the scroll bar perfect!

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

That's actually some really kickass feedback that we now have no choice but to implement! Thanks pfraze!

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

Good catch! Thanks a lot.

neovelleron Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader

Hey everyone, I'm Michael, a product engineer at Hyperink. Over the past month or so, I've been developing a rich, social reading experience for our content, freeing us from the stranglehold of MOBI and EPUB file formats. Today, Jeff Atwood generously granted us permission to release half of his book completely free on this Crowd Reader (paid customers get to see all of it there).

The problem: paperback/print always wins over digital and arguably e-ink. Our solution: make reading a unique and asynchronously social experience.

I've love to get some beta feedback and hopefully some suggestions for how to improve the UI/UX. Thanks, and happy reading!

UPDATE: forgot to mention. This app is 100% JavaScript with Node and my own JS makeshift library on the front. MongoDB for database. Madness.

neovelleron Plead HN: Build a functional apartment finding website.

Also this: http://livelovely.com/

neovelleron Startup School 2011 videos

But if Carl were as blind as a bat, how could he see the city he indirectly developed from... a blimp?

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Something on the web has more value when it is viewed by more individuals than otherwise, correct? Early anonymous communities did provide some kind of value to their members, but they comparatively provide more value today when more individuals are present.

The problem when talking about social science is that everything is relational/relative. Rigid identity is necessary as a foundation for the MASSIVE (modern-day scale) usefulness of pen names and anonymity. It is not necessary for the smaller audience, but for the larger one which is online and present which we take for granted, it is necessary. Wild animals are often always looking for food. The claim of no-identity-before-statehood is, as stated, very, very relative, and I even wrote that this contrasts with identity as we know it today. The point is that identity did not matter when nobody had anything to do with themselves through it. Aristocrats, as written, are the exception due to their privilege of free time and surplus. The identity of a man who does one thing out of survival necessity is orders of magnitude less complex than the identity of a man who does several things and prides himself on all of them, and continuously has the option of re-defining himself.

Moreover, I have to admit that the assumption of no identity before the Industrial Revolution is something I studied in the entirety of two social geography courses dealing with how context defines the modern imaginary (as everything is only imagined with us).

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Identity comes from the concept of identification/classification. These are notions which evolved with modernism in Western society, or the ability to measure things exactly for the sake of predicting and knowing. There is no exact meaning for identity due to its elusive nature, as its meaning belongs to the fluid individual. My post presumes the definition, and yes, that makes it just an assertion.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

I did not mention the name Christopher Poole anywhere. Capitalizing on his pen name was within his argument's wishes.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Reddit and Digg were successful independent of Facebook. Their scale of success was not. Prove me wrong.

As for your example, you dodged a bullet. That girl was not prepared for the level of Internets and self-incrimination that is you.

I'm not defending Facebook connect, nor am I defending data collection based on rigid identity. Instead, I'm defending the fact that the existence of Facebook grew the Internet and the numbers of people comfortable with using the Internet.

Let's say that Facebook is Costco and your pen-name-using websites are a mom&pop grocery store a few miles away from it. Costco's strategy is to build their stores in places that aren't so populated at first, and then attract business by providing the incentive for urbanization in the area. This is actually how Costco chooses to locate. They have a lasting impact on the area, and drive urbanization, in the same way Facebook drives adoption of web technologies. Your mom&pop store will receive more customers with Costco there than with Costco not there (and with just an order of magnitude less residents resulting). Facebook/Costco provides a service of convenience and necessity for the masses, while the mom&pop chain falls under a niche market with its own costs/benefits. Nonetheless, the mom&pop shop (Reddit) will benefit with the Costco (Facebook) existing in the same landscape.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Your UPP is what enabled you to make an account just to respond to this thread. Maybe we're unclear on definitions here. UPP facilitates the desire to make comments whether read by anyone or not, because it is made so abundant by technology as to devalue it as social currency in the first place. Regardless, it adds or subtracts from the UPP of people who took the time to read it (namely my own), and caused a reaction at the expense of my own. It's a force and currency, not an issue.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Correct. I wrote a post which avoided controversy by analyzing the social evolution of identity instead of taking a stance on the issue which cannot be backed by a model. To make this relevant, I involved Moot's point and showed how it is moot when taken together with the model. Is UPP good or bad, desirable? In relation to who? The answer changes depending on who responds to the output of UPP. Personally, I find UPP desirable because it has the potential to shake things up. I'm a big fan of shaking things up, but not the extent where it removes foundations and collapses a working system.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

After reading and responding to the comments, I want to add an overall, more clear message:

The argument is that without rigid identity on the web, anonymity and pen names could not really take off and receive audience. Many individuals' first encounter with the Internet and any web communities is with Facebook, and this is because these people would not feel comfortable starting out on a place like Reddit for 4chan. For this reason, rigid identity is a necessary foundation for the usefulness of pen names and anonymity. Moot's argument that pen names are the way to go is flawed insofar as it undermines the "necessary evil" of rigid identity, which is a natural, socially evolved stepping stone for anonymity's value.

Without people going online and possessing monuments to themselves (facebook profiles) in a way they feel comfortable and secure in, anything posted online (including content under pen names) is in aggregate less valuable. Rigid identity is a necessary characteristic of social media content which can result in inexperienced web users taking the plunge to explore the rest of the less-rigid web.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

I don't think you are wrong in your overall point. My post was an analysis of the social evolution of self-expression. That was its direction. Your points relate to the actual utility of having no identity. The merits of your points (while anonymous) exist, but I would argue that they could not exist if not for the experiences derived under a rigid identity, perhaps not even without the experiences derived from having an identity on the web anywhere. How do you know that you care about identity or UPP or not if you did not experience both the "have" and "have not" have not at some point? Your opinion comes out of the in-between, and knowing both ways.

Edit: upvote for your throwaway, new account to prove your point. I imagine it would not have preceded a real account that you care about.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

I am indeed arguing that Facebook's very existence and the effect it had, insofar as it greased the wheel of Internet use, is a huge part of why Reddit can exist at the scale it does. Reddit is a better-organized web forum, which are not new, and maybe by its own design merit does it succeed. This, I do not argue with. But I do not think it could exist at its current or anywhere-near-comparable scale and level of success without the social network effect.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

I mention Reddit and in the post. I remark that it has to do with autobiographical memory, which is a very postmodern force. But it would have a hard time gaining a userbase if something like Facebook and Myspace had never existed. The latter bring the userbase to the Internet in the first place, where Reddit is a secondary outcome that could not have possibly gained its userbase without the effects of a social network (aka people posting reddit links on Facebook).

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

To connect the dots here: I think both Moot and I employ a sort of essentialist rhetoric to get attention, the same way you would write something enormously more controversial under a pen name. A more strict interpretation of Moot's argument is that Facebook should be filled with pen names, as people need to be creative instead of simply informative, and that rigidity kills creativity. A strict interpretation of my argument is just as you said, but also that the well integrated identity comes before anonymity before anonymity may become useful / audienced. Moot's simple championing of anonymity misses the point that you need an audience first, which is gathered by putting people in a position where they can willingly be exposed to its content. It's the same as why farmville isn't 100% evil: it brings people to the web who otherwise would never be there, and acts as a positive externality on all other web sub-industries.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

Sorry, naner. When I try to be precise about things and not essentialize, it does require some amount of padding with jargon (pertaining to specificity) which would otherwise be taken as bullshit-like if not read by the fielded eye. What I try to do is stay away from generalizing and making indefensible claims. Next time, I'll stick with graphs, which is how I formulate my ideas and relate different social forces in the first place. To be dry: I wanted to be as accurate as possible, but it clouded all meaning.

neovelleron Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

For that case, I agree with you. Where I refute Moot is where he calls the model of reality-reflected identity on Facebook incorrect, which comes off as essentialist. Imagine if Facebook at the start tells you to choose any name of your liking. On a social network, how effective would the content that you'd rather post under a pseudonym be? The idea is that without Facebook, the share-ability of such content would be diminished. So my argument, admittedly unclear in the post, is that pseudonymity and anonymity actually derive their audience from the effects of rigidly reflected identities--but if you throw out the strictness that Facebook imposes entirely, on Facebook in particular, your audience size dries up considerably. People feel comfortable SHARING from a point of forced identity, but their will to EXPRESS themselves is most manifest in anonymity and pseudonymity. Expression without an audience is almost meaningless. It's a foundational issue.

neovelleron TakeThisLollipop - really clever/creepy use of the Facebook API

I tested this out for you. It just stops at 00:00:00 and nothing happens at all!