Poster for the movie adaptation of the cell phone novel "Sky of Love," which sold 1.3 million copies in three weeks.

A recent issue of The New Yorker had an interesting article on cell phone novels in Japan. Popularized about five years ago, these novels are posted to the Web by authors who write them on their phones, constrained by the limitations of the medium. The most successful of them are published on paper in a format that mimics the cell phone experience. Some are adapted into manga comic books and movies. And the form might be poised for success in America as well. Read more…

http://mcdmwiki.mootkat.com/

One of the nice things about Wikis and other social media platforms is that lots of times they can be launched within minutes of someone saying “We need a wiki.”

I seeded it with some suggested topics to try to get things going, but didn’t add any real content. Consider this your Wiki and jump in to add anything you think would be useful to your fellow MCDM students or anyone else who comes to the site. Depending on how successful it is, the hosting and URL may change in the future.

Once again, I’m learning of some cool work being done by here at UW. Today’s Seattle Times (which my family still subscribes to in print form, just for the sheer Ludditeness of it) contains an article entitled “Inflexible Security? Lighten Up” by technology columnist Brier Dudley. The piece describes Friendbo, an access-control system being developed by students and professors at the U. Thanks to a technology transfer grant, Ph.D candidate Michael Toomin has taken Friendbo from a classroom project to a company set to soon release a Facebook app. Read more…

While recently catching up on my traditional media, I came across this book review of David Crystal’s “Txtng: The Gr8 Db8” in the October 20 issue of The New Yorker. Among other things that interested me was the idea that there’s a debate about texting, great or not. I caught as much of the Presidential debates as I could, but somehow missed the text messaging debates entirely. Read more…

This is a story that I’ve been following for some time, and it keeps getting weirder and weirder.

For several years, the CEO of Overstock.com, Patrick Byrne, has been arguing that naked short selling of stocks has been used in organized efforts to push the stock prices of some companies, including Overstock.com, lower and lower.

It’s hard to describe, but “naked short selling” essentially boils down to selling stock you don’t own for less than you didn’t pay for it, and making money on the deal. Yes, it’s very confusing. I’d tell you to look it up on Wikipedia, but first you should read the rest of this post.

Read more…