Webworlds

del.icio.us

In the same way that future generations will find it odd that all telephones used to be attached to houses, so will they find it strange that our favourite websites were once listed on one computer.

Del.icio.us is a great idea and amongst the crop of new ‘social’ websites which promise to make the internet both more powerful and user-friendly. At its most basic level, it’s an online repository of bookmarks, dismissing the need to use your browser’s facility. So access the web from anywhere and you’ve always got your favourites to hand. Simple stuff.

Where it gets really interesting is that those bookmarks can be tagged with keywords and shared with other users, adding to a rich but very searchable database of recommended sites. The links can be filed and arranged in several different ways, and pushing the ‘social’ angle you can make contact with like-minded users and recommend them sites you have found.

As the web continues to balloon, the art of finding your way to the good stuff becomes more important than ever. del.icio.us is an emphatic move in the right direction.

Open-lecture.net: don’t miss out, whatever your interests

Another perfectly simple idea. In a country where many of us are within easy reach of several large universities, free public lectures and seminars are a wonderful resource. The trick is knowing when and where they’re on.

Step forward Steve Cooke, proactive attendee of academic events and founder of Open-lecture.net. As someone who enjoyed the benefits of public lectures while recovering from ill health last year, this is his contribution to making them better advertised and better attended.

It’s a listing of free and virtually free events around the country that can be searched by subject or region. Usefully, it hosts an RSS feed that can be tailored to your preferences, so you needn’t keep visiting the site for updates. Registered users can also upload events themselves, which promises to keep the content moving along.

Coverage so far is patchy but should strengthen as more institutions come on board. It’s a tremendous idea that deserves to succeed, so show your approval and sign up. Our compliments to the Cooke!

Inanimate Alice: sharp and unsettling multimedia fiction

Kinetic novel? Multimedia narrative? Online graphic hypertextual fiction?

Labels have as yet failed to attach themselves firmly to pieces such as Inanimate Alice, but that suits the uncertain, exploratory nature of the medium itself. The first two chapters of De Montfort writer Kate Pullinger’s five-part story have now been published, and are worth a look by anyone drawn to the interface between animation and literature.

They detail days in the life of Alice, a young girl whose parents’ work in the oil industry takes her around the world. Through her handheld computer and mystical/virtual friend ‘Brad’ she negotiates difficult journeys through the dark.

The first chapter, set in China, is subtle and compelling enough to keep you clicking through to the end. There are some atmospheric moments, including sharp use of sound and unsettling graphics that capitalise on the usually solitary nature of using the internet.

Disappointingly, the second chapter seems merely a less inspired variant on the first, and while it’s worth experiencing for some of its components the narrative is just too light to hold it all together. Gimmicks – such as helping Alice to dress before she goes out into the snow – seem like they’ve been included because they can be, not because they should be.

The wealth of possibilities conjured by multimedia fiction is exciting, as Inanimate Alice amply demonstrates. The orchestration of those elements into a great narrative may be another story.