Image based on Who you looking at? by Askpang which was licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license just as this image is. Image inspiration from icanhascheezburger.com I love text. Books, letters, blogs, emails, instant messages, text messages. I could wax long about this particular idea, but Guy de Maupassant said it better than I could:

Words dazzle and decieve because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.

I also love the limitations that bring true creativity. I could wax long about this particular idea, but Jack White said it better than I could:

“A lot about the White Stripes is about constriction and keeping us boxed in. Being extremely stripped down to the most minimal components, mostly revolving around the number 3. You see that [we use] three colors: red, white and black. But also vocal, guitar and drums, or vocal, piano and drums; and, keeping ourselves limited. I think there’s more creativity where there’s less opportunity. Instead of trying to bring more musicians into the band or more tracks when we record or more time spent in the studio, it’s best to explore the creativity with limited means. You get more out of it; something more interesting happens.”

Two sites I have encountered recently that embody both of these ideas are Twitter and Ficlets. Twitter could be described as the world's most stripped down blogging app (even moreso than something like tumblr) or the world's most stripped down version of MySpace. It could also be described as the simplest way of keeping up with your "friends" and allowing them to keep up with you using messages of 160 characters or less. You can update via their website, AIM, Google Talk, or via text messaging. The new widget you see on the home page shows my latest updates. I had been looking for a way to do some form of moblogging from my cell, but all the methods I tried proved to be unusable. Twitter allows me to do most of what I wanted to do "right out of the box!"

Ficlets is a collaborative writing site that feels at times like Flickr for words. You write a short bit of a story, not exceeding 1024 characters, and publish it on the site. Then any of the other members can come along and rate and/or comment on your writing. The really cool part about the site is that they can also write a sequel or prequel for the bit of story you have written, which can then be added to by you or any other member, and so on and so forth. Meaning that it is possible for the community to create long story arcs, all linked to each other in daisy chain fashion, spreading forward and back and branching off in new directions from that original germ of a story idea. For instance, this story has spawned a very long back and forth (which you can follow by the links at the bottom of the stories) between two ficleteers who trade off bits of the story, no mean feat in a mystery.

The limitation to 1024 characters seems harsh at first, but it is one of the true genius ideas of the site. You will never use word emolument when you actually mean tip, you will never employ a useless and lazy adverb, and you will rarely leave in a bit of description that does not directly serve the story when you are limited to those few characters. Every single letter becomes precious in this case, especially if you are trying to write something to inspire others to continue your work and you wish to establish a character, a setting, and the beginning of a story.

It is also worth noting that Ficlets.com is one of the best designed, in terms of usability and layout, of any of the new Web2.0 sites that I have tried out. Everything from the composition app to the extensive use of RSS feels well thought out and solidly designed and implemented, like Flickr or one of 37signals apps. Also, if you have an AIM account or a login at an OpenID site (like LiveJournal) you can use those for registration and save yourself from having to remember yet another login for another site.

You can find my ficlets here. The first two are marked mature, one for blood the other for the use of the word breasts, so unless you are a member you will not be able to read those. The others are nothing great, just me piddling around, but I think they illustrate the workings of the site pretty well. Ok, so I am kinda proud of the first story in the series here, where I managed to at least suggest a character, a setting and the beginning of a story in the space provided. I'd never claim it was great literature of course, just something I was mildly pleased with.

Links:
Kottke on Twitter
Darth Vader's Twitter
Luke Skywalker's Twitter
Twitterholic.com
Scalzi announcing the launch of Ficlets.com
Wil Wheaton on Ficlets