Another Twitter battle in the making…Pogue vs. Marshelak

So, David Pogue whose column I read in the Times and have probably since he started it, had a great idea.  He is a twitter user @Pogue, and tends to send out questions or thoughts of the day as Tweets.  His idea was a book of Twitter questions and answers – whole post below because it is short.

The World According to Twitter by David Pogue

It all started with a live demo of Twitter.

During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?”

Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds. In fact, the one-liners rained in for days:

• I used to work at an orange juice factory, but they canned me because I couldn’t concentrate. (@alancshaw)
• She was only a moonshiner’s daughter, but I loved her still. (@matthewdooley)
• Two TV installers met on a roof and fell in love. The wedding ceremony wasn’t so great... but wow, the reception! (@marqueO)

Man, this was AMAZING! Real-time feedback from the masses!

Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever (click here to read).

Then came my call for the best advice your parents ever gave you. This time, there was more than humor; there was practical information and real emotion, too:

• Son, there’s a time and a place for everything. It’s called college. (@BarrSteve)
• Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom. (@_hillary)
• Don’t let school get in the way of your education. (@Navesink)
• If you caught a fish every time you went fishing, it’d be called catching. (@BruceTurkel)
• If you buy the dress, the occasion will arise. (@haejinshin)
• If someone offers you a breath mint—take it. (@dsr)
• Two eyes, two ears, one mouth. Use them proportionally. (@pcz)
• If at first you don’t succeed, we’ll still love you. (@zwb)

That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of these responses, written by my 200,000 followers.

Every night for the next few weeks, I’ll pose another question on Twitter. For example:

• What’s your greatest regret?
• Sum up your life story in six words.
• Tell us about your wedding proposal.
• What’s the best toast you ever heard?
• What’s the best Internet joke you ever got emailed?
• Anyone seen any good bumper stickers lately?
• Tell us about a Brush with Greatness (a celebrity encounter).
• What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?
• Write a haiku about your childhood.
• Send me your best anagram of a current famous person’s name.

Each two-page spread of the book will contain the best of your responses to a single question.

“The World According to Twitter” will be a charming, irresistible, extremely hilarious little book, a book that couldn’t be written in any other way.

If I publish one of your tweets, I’ll send you a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally. I’ll also credit your response in the book, using your Twitter name. (Don’t come crying to me if you suddenly pick up hundreds of new followers!)

So that’s it: a challenge, a ride, a crazy experiment.

Let the communal book-writing begin!

Now I thought this was a grand idea and that Pogue was the perfect person to write it as his field is well – technology.  But today, he tweeted the following post by Russ Marshaek (whose post in fairness I will put in its entirety as well.

@heywritemybookforme

April 22, 2009 at 3:41 pm by Russ Marshalek in Books, Pop Culture

Forget the Kindle vs. paper books debate — apparently the days of actually “writing” a “book” are slowly coming to an end. You know, craft, art, substance(s), the actual minutia that all go into making a book a piece of work — it’s all becoming as outdated as banks crash, attention spans diminish, and robots begin serving us dinner in capsule form (OK, that last one won’t happen ’til 2011). In this new cultural landscape, we will need leaders, like the Jonas Brothers, to rise up and, with a firm hand, guide us to new levels of social media interactivity. Fortunately David Pogue, New York Times columnist and author of many books that teach your grandmother how to check e-mail on her eMac, is here to save us via his forthcoming The World According To Twitter.

From the blog of Pogue (David Pogue, not the Pogues the band, because you know very well that I’d heap high praise on anything penned by Shane MacGowan):

It all started with a live demo of Twitter. During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?” Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds….

Wait, wait, dear Culture Surfer reader, don’t check out yet, it gets better (in the way that “better” means “worse”):

Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever!

(Oh, sorry, I added that exclamation point up there. It just needed it, didn’t it?)

That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of (Twitter) responses, written by my 200,000 followers.

In today’s collapsing publishing landscape this book screams both timely and vital. I’ll be greatly looking forward to Pogue’s well-thought-out treatise on Friendster soon!

No, really, all snark aside, this sort of attempt at an of-the-minute cash-grab really irks me. While publishers, authors and other various incidental folk in the book business are actually working, diligently and full of heart, to discover what it’s going to take to turn the sinking ship of books around, Pogue’s trying to ramp up excitement for 200 pages of @SomeGuy tweeting “hey I really like dogs.”

And speaking of @someguy — if you, lucky you, end up being selected to be a part of Pogue’s scam project, you certainly get compensated, right?

Of course you do. Per Pogue himself, he’ll send you “a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally.”

Oh, wow, lucky day!

Meanwhile, he’ll certainly be charging at least $19.95 for the book.

Also, while Twitter may be the super-hot “this is going to save the world as soon as we figure out how to use it” topic on the tip of many a CEO’s tongue … well, that’s it exactly. In a matter of time, Twitter will be to to some new social network what Myspace now is to Facebook. Trying to document any social network, in any way, via printed text, reminds me of when I, as an undergrad, was paid far too much money to copy write for what was aiming to be the “first printed guide to web sites” — since, you know, websites tend to stay around forever.

I don’t think it ever actually took off the ground. Imagine that.

Anyway, it saddens me when I can genuinely say that I prefer Oprah and Ashton Kutcher’s manipulation of Twitter for their own gains over David Pogue’s “you guys can do my job for me and I’ll insert the hot social network of the moment into it to make it timely” approach, but I do. I mean, Oprah’s like everyone’s crazy aunt, so she’s forgiven to being late to the party.

Also, at least Oprah isn’t asking her Twitter followers to write a book for her.

Now here is my question – David seems to me to have presented an exciting idea that could result in a great book.  Russ seems to be a bit judgmental.  After all, it’s almost all pop culture of the moment?  And a lot of great art has been created in the moment.  Would Russ hate improv or poetry slams I wonder?