Comments on: The Mongoliad http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5621 The stomping grounds of Tim Carmody, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It's a long-running conversation about media, journalism, technology, cities, culture, design, books, music, movies, the future and the past. Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:20:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Helen Michaud http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5621/comment-page-1#comment-10967 Helen Michaud Sat, 29 May 2010 18:23:24 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=5621#comment-10967 I thought of you when I read about that ... actually, the train of thought went something like: Interesting idea, but dunno how it'll work for fiction -- especially epic, Neal Stephensonian fiction. Who does this Stephenson guy think he is, Robin Sloan? (This kind of thing, if well executed, could actually be great for technical documentation, for instance. There are lots of tools/practices evolving to support just this model of community feedback/enhancement in technical communication, including things like Adobe AIR Help, which could easily be adapted to present something in novel form, although you couldn't run it on an iPad ...) But in principle: why not? Why not Annabel Scheme and Schemapedia integrated into one app? With access to the other creative offshoots of the book? Something makes me feel like The Mongoliad is going to miss the mark, though. Maybe it's the art direction. Maybe it's the combination of their professed "openness" and the platforms they've chosen to target. (I don't usually get religious about this issue, but ... really?) Maybe it's the subscription scheme. Anyway, of course I dropped my email into the box on Subutai's site for updates. I'm curious to see how it all turns out. I thought of you when I read about that … actually, the train of thought went something like: Interesting idea, but dunno how it’ll work for fiction — especially epic, Neal Stephensonian fiction. Who does this Stephenson guy think he is, Robin Sloan? (This kind of thing, if well executed, could actually be great for technical documentation, for instance. There are lots of tools/practices evolving to support just this model of community feedback/enhancement in technical communication, including things like Adobe AIR Help, which could easily be adapted to present something in novel form, although you couldn’t run it on an iPad …)

But in principle: why not? Why not Annabel Scheme and Schemapedia integrated into one app? With access to the other creative offshoots of the book? Something makes me feel like The Mongoliad is going to miss the mark, though. Maybe it’s the art direction. Maybe it’s the combination of their professed “openness” and the platforms they’ve chosen to target. (I don’t usually get religious about this issue, but … really?) Maybe it’s the subscription scheme.

Anyway, of course I dropped my email into the box on Subutai’s site for updates. I’m curious to see how it all turns out.

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