A couple of months ago, I noted an intriguing new project in social reading. After downloading the iPad app for The Mongoliad and reading some excerpts, I decided it wasn’t my cup of tea. Still, the community that is developing around this experiment is intriguing.
How Neal Stephenson’s The Mongoliad is Revolutionizing Immersive Online Storytelling
People constantly talk about social reading as the next business model for publishing. Well, it’s here, it’s The Mongoliad.
In the febrile, occasionally paranoid, always news hungry world of digital publishing, it seems strange that something so important should have slipped by so unnoticed, yet The Mongoliad seems to have been largely overlooked by the publishing Establishment. Perhaps it’s the name. Perhaps it’s the knights and swords. Perhaps because it’s from a bunch of SF writers and outside the science fiction imprints this style gets short shrift from the literati. Perhaps people just don’t care. This is a mistake. The Mongoliad is one of the most radical experiments in the history of publishing and writing that, if it works, could reshape the nature of both for generations. Yes, really.
Akopos 