7 ms·

PenFM: Fall back in love with writing via your terrible friends

59 points by edwardog 14y ago

neoveller 14y ago
Thanks for posting this, edwardog! Glad someone felt compelled to. I'm the guy behind PenFM. AMA.
- iamdave 14y ago
  Okay. Why ".FM" domain?
  - neoveller 14y ago
    Because when you're bootstrapped and can't buy a 3 letter dotCom for $55/year, FM doesn't look so bad. So we're working with it, and kind of playing with the slogan "broadcast lit".
    - iamdave 14y ago
      Broadcast lit can actually work for what you're wanting to sell this as, so I'll give you that point. But where are you looking that ended up with a $55/yr TLD? Unless you're bootstrapping from absolutely nothing, that's an investment worth making imo. Not dismissing your product here, as a journalism nerd I think it's a novel concept and approach.
      - neoveller 14y ago
        Indeed I am bootstrapping from basically nothing. I have this horrible tendency to leave a job right when I have just a few months of runway. It really puts my feet to the fire :) pen.com is going to fet a pretty penny, I imagine in the higher 10,000s if not more. With funding, it becomes feasible. And to correct myself, FM domains cost $79/year not 55, so that's where I am. Got lucky in finding the short name.
jasondenizac 14y ago
Not all of my friends are terrible, though - so I'm somewhat conflicted.
leisun 14y ago
This is really popular in China ;-)
adiM 14y ago
Darn, for a moment I thought that this was a site that encourages people to write with a real pen: fall back in love (PenFM).
CKKim 14y ago
I just watched the video. It shows a few people typing with each other online (in this case working together on a collaborative story), a picture being dropped down near the end, and then it being posted to Facebook. I understand that the product is the software that allows them to do this but it's not clear to me what unique features are being offered that make it superior to the IM programs and forums people have already been writing collaboratively on for years. What am I missing?
- neoveller 14y ago
  Yeah, the video was designed in a way to capture the experience rather than the tech. What isn't fully exposed: - what you see is what you get. whenever you want, you can download the story in epub, mobi, or pdf format. while you might have to pay initially, you keep the story itself for any future download at each stage of its development in any format. - writing is in realtime. you can see what others write, google doc style. - content discovery is an enormous sell point here. you can write in gdocs all you want, but will just anyone be able to find and read and comment on it? we make stories accessible to the entire future pen.fm community to share and enjoy. - we can update you on stories that you've subscribed to, to let you know anything from the fact that it's updated, or the section added itself. - does anyone really enough shuffling back and forth between word/gdocs, chat, and forums? - and more. hope that's good for now. :)
  - CKKim 14y ago
    Thanks for that, I get it better now. Writing with this isn't something that interests me personally, but I hope it is funded because I reckon watching other people do it in a "spectator" mode would be pretty entertaining!
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  My brother actually conceived a somewhat similar idea several years ago, but I figured it wouldn't be worth the effort to code and I'm not sure I even knew what technology would be necessary. If I understand correctly, the idea here is to replace writing workshops. Instead of writing a draft, bringing it in and waiting while your peers read it and mark it up, it's all realtime. I suppose the thinking here is that if you make the whole thing fun and social people will do more of it, or perhaps by making it interactive it will be faster and you won't go as far with a bad concept, or something. It's a cool idea, but it still strikes me as too expensive to build for what you're getting. And I think you get better writing out of putting in time and thought. But the amateur market is probably a lot bigger than the professional market, so maybe it doesn't matter.
neoveller 14y ago
http://www.pen.fm/read/A-Chance-Autumn-Encounter-PNefec68b4f051c443 http://www.pen.fm/read/A-Chance-Autumn-Encounter-PNefec68b4f... Demo of our reading experience
csaba161 14y ago
thanks for this information, while I am away with penfm
jeswin 14y ago
I have a similar project called "Social Typist". https://github.com/jeswin/socialtypist https://github.com/jeswin/socialtypist Definitely something worth exploring. Best of luck. Edit: last line.
etherextraction 14y ago
Other then the export features to epub, how is this different then just using google docs?
- neoveller 14y ago
  For one, google docs has a free-form dynamic that doesn't really prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work. PenFM, like its predecessor Neovella, enforces a turn-based writing collaboration. But that's entirely just in terms of how it differs from GDocs in the sense of sharing the production of content. Collaboration in PenFM happens in another, more powerful way: the ability to react to parts of a story with simple likes and more thorough commenting. Imagine having written a story, and now you have to send it out to friends & peers to review and give feedback on. Would you really rather have a back-and-forth over IM, constantly having to find the part they're referring to? On PenFM, they just click the section, type a comment, and you get notified to go take a look at what they wrote. It's asynchronous.
  - iamdave 14y ago
    For one, google docs has a free-form dynamic that doesn't really prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work. Not sure what you mean by "prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work", given you can very easily share docs and disable edit features at the user and group level but still allow people to read changes as they happen
ChristianMarks 14y ago
An online writers' workshop--not the same as Google Docs. There are online subscription systems that support such activities, such as http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ Getting decent feedback is a problem. Perhaps there is a workable system that would compensate good reviewers. Most writers aren't rich, but they might be willing to pay other writers (who aren't rich) to review their work.
- neoveller 14y ago
  You sound like you really understand the pain-points pretty well, and while we have a few ways we're considering solving this one, I would love to pick your brain about it. Would you mind shooting me an email at mike@pen.fm?
- acabal 14y ago
  My website, Scribophile, has been doing this successfully for about 5 years now. It looks like it's solving a different problem than pen.fm though. While Scribophile concentrates entirely on craft and workshopping, it looks like pen.fm is more of a marketing/publishing/writing platform.
oulipian 14y ago
Using Ayn "Virtue of Selfishness" Rand to advertise your collaborative writing app is like using Donald Trump to advertise hair-care products.
- DividesByZero 14y ago
  Not least due to her dearth of writing ability.
- neoveller 14y ago
  Every collaborative story needs an amphetamine-driven cynic to cause a little bit of chaos.
  - oulipian 14y ago
    That is not how most people are going to interpret that image. It comes across as completely clueless, since Rand is both a notoriously terrible writer and someone who would absolutely abhor the idea of collaborative writing, not to mention the idea of giving someone money.
    - neoveller 14y ago
      Though I think you may be jumping the gun on how "most people" are going to interpret 1/4th of an image, it's important to note that the full PenFM project is also built to accomodate single-author works that may or may not be the best quality writing.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  And I hear you can support the capitalist system by buying shirts with Che Guevara's face on them. Or perhaps referencing equal parts Ayn Rand, Hemmingway, Poe and Cervantes might be more of an attempt to bring to mind famous authors rather than objectivism?
  - oulipian 14y ago
    Sure. But it's like using a picture of a circle, a triangle, a square, and a swastika to suggest "geometric shapes".
shelf 14y ago
Novel interface. Get the fanfic authors on board. A tool like this would be perfect for school English classes or creative writing workshops (and alumni). As for making the rest of us plebs pick up the pen again... It's a little harder than just giving us nice tools. Many aspiring writers (not all!) like to hide their work away until they are absolutely certain they will get good feedback, while this is like running around naked in the front yard. Soundcloud has a similar 'get creating' premise and magically minimises that fear of failure factor. I'm not sure how, but it's amazing. The line between supportive and vicious is grey, blurry, narrow. Take care.

59 points by edwardog 14y ago

neoveller 14y ago

Thanks for posting this, edwardog! Glad someone felt compelled to. I'm the guy behind PenFM. AMA.

iamdave 14y ago
Okay. Why ".FM" domain?
- neoveller 14y ago
  Because when you're bootstrapped and can't buy a 3 letter dotCom for $55/year, FM doesn't look so bad. So we're working with it, and kind of playing with the slogan "broadcast lit".
  - iamdave 14y ago
    Broadcast lit can actually work for what you're wanting to sell this as, so I'll give you that point. But where are you looking that ended up with a $55/yr TLD? Unless you're bootstrapping from absolutely nothing, that's an investment worth making imo. Not dismissing your product here, as a journalism nerd I think it's a novel concept and approach.
    - neoveller 14y ago
      Indeed I am bootstrapping from basically nothing. I have this horrible tendency to leave a job right when I have just a few months of runway. It really puts my feet to the fire :) pen.com is going to fet a pretty penny, I imagine in the higher 10,000s if not more. With funding, it becomes feasible. And to correct myself, FM domains cost $79/year not 55, so that's where I am. Got lucky in finding the short name.

jasondenizac 14y ago

Not all of my friends are terrible, though - so I'm somewhat conflicted.

leisun 14y ago

This is really popular in China ;-)

adiM 14y ago

Darn, for a moment I thought that this was a site that encourages people to write with a real pen: fall back in love (PenFM).

CKKim 14y ago

I just watched the video. It shows a few people typing with each other online (in this case working together on a collaborative story), a picture being dropped down near the end, and then it being posted to Facebook. I understand that the product is the software that allows them to do this but it's not clear to me what unique features are being offered that make it superior to the IM programs and forums people have already been writing collaboratively on for years. What am I missing?

neoveller 14y ago
Yeah, the video was designed in a way to capture the experience rather than the tech. What isn't fully exposed: - what you see is what you get. whenever you want, you can download the story in epub, mobi, or pdf format. while you might have to pay initially, you keep the story itself for any future download at each stage of its development in any format. - writing is in realtime. you can see what others write, google doc style. - content discovery is an enormous sell point here. you can write in gdocs all you want, but will just anyone be able to find and read and comment on it? we make stories accessible to the entire future pen.fm community to share and enjoy. - we can update you on stories that you've subscribed to, to let you know anything from the fact that it's updated, or the section added itself. - does anyone really enough shuffling back and forth between word/gdocs, chat, and forums? - and more. hope that's good for now. :)
- CKKim 14y ago
  Thanks for that, I get it better now. Writing with this isn't something that interests me personally, but I hope it is funded because I reckon watching other people do it in a "spectator" mode would be pretty entertaining!
fusiongyro 14y ago
My brother actually conceived a somewhat similar idea several years ago, but I figured it wouldn't be worth the effort to code and I'm not sure I even knew what technology would be necessary. If I understand correctly, the idea here is to replace writing workshops. Instead of writing a draft, bringing it in and waiting while your peers read it and mark it up, it's all realtime. I suppose the thinking here is that if you make the whole thing fun and social people will do more of it, or perhaps by making it interactive it will be faster and you won't go as far with a bad concept, or something. It's a cool idea, but it still strikes me as too expensive to build for what you're getting. And I think you get better writing out of putting in time and thought. But the amateur market is probably a lot bigger than the professional market, so maybe it doesn't matter.

neoveller 14y ago

http://www.pen.fm/read/A-Chance-Autumn-Encounter-PNefec68b4f051c443 http://www.pen.fm/read/A-Chance-Autumn-Encounter-PNefec68b4f... Demo of our reading experience

csaba161 14y ago

thanks for this information, while I am away with penfm

jeswin 14y ago

I have a similar project called "Social Typist". https://github.com/jeswin/socialtypist https://github.com/jeswin/socialtypist Definitely something worth exploring. Best of luck. Edit: last line.

etherextraction 14y ago

Other then the export features to epub, how is this different then just using google docs?

neoveller 14y ago
For one, google docs has a free-form dynamic that doesn't really prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work. PenFM, like its predecessor Neovella, enforces a turn-based writing collaboration. But that's entirely just in terms of how it differs from GDocs in the sense of sharing the production of content. Collaboration in PenFM happens in another, more powerful way: the ability to react to parts of a story with simple likes and more thorough commenting. Imagine having written a story, and now you have to send it out to friends & peers to review and give feedback on. Would you really rather have a back-and-forth over IM, constantly having to find the part they're referring to? On PenFM, they just click the section, type a comment, and you get notified to go take a look at what they wrote. It's asynchronous.
- iamdave 14y ago
  For one, google docs has a free-form dynamic that doesn't really prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work. Not sure what you mean by "prevent people from cannibalizing each other's work", given you can very easily share docs and disable edit features at the user and group level but still allow people to read changes as they happen

ChristianMarks 14y ago

An online writers' workshop--not the same as Google Docs. There are online subscription systems that support such activities, such as http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ Getting decent feedback is a problem. Perhaps there is a workable system that would compensate good reviewers. Most writers aren't rich, but they might be willing to pay other writers (who aren't rich) to review their work.

neoveller 14y ago
You sound like you really understand the pain-points pretty well, and while we have a few ways we're considering solving this one, I would love to pick your brain about it. Would you mind shooting me an email at mike@pen.fm?
acabal 14y ago
My website, Scribophile, has been doing this successfully for about 5 years now. It looks like it's solving a different problem than pen.fm though. While Scribophile concentrates entirely on craft and workshopping, it looks like pen.fm is more of a marketing/publishing/writing platform.

oulipian 14y ago

Using Ayn "Virtue of Selfishness" Rand to advertise your collaborative writing app is like using Donald Trump to advertise hair-care products.

DividesByZero 14y ago
Not least due to her dearth of writing ability.
neoveller 14y ago
Every collaborative story needs an amphetamine-driven cynic to cause a little bit of chaos.
- oulipian 14y ago
  That is not how most people are going to interpret that image. It comes across as completely clueless, since Rand is both a notoriously terrible writer and someone who would absolutely abhor the idea of collaborative writing, not to mention the idea of giving someone money.
  - neoveller 14y ago
    Though I think you may be jumping the gun on how "most people" are going to interpret 1/4th of an image, it's important to note that the full PenFM project is also built to accomodate single-author works that may or may not be the best quality writing.
fusiongyro 14y ago
And I hear you can support the capitalist system by buying shirts with Che Guevara's face on them. Or perhaps referencing equal parts Ayn Rand, Hemmingway, Poe and Cervantes might be more of an attempt to bring to mind famous authors rather than objectivism?
- oulipian 14y ago
  Sure. But it's like using a picture of a circle, a triangle, a square, and a swastika to suggest "geometric shapes".

shelf 14y ago

Novel interface. Get the fanfic authors on board. A tool like this would be perfect for school English classes or creative writing workshops (and alumni). As for making the rest of us plebs pick up the pen again... It's a little harder than just giving us nice tools. Many aspiring writers (not all!) like to hide their work away until they are absolutely certain they will get good feedback, while this is like running around naked in the front yard. Soundcloud has a similar 'get creating' premise and magically minimises that fear of failure factor. I'm not sure how, but it's amazing. The line between supportive and vicious is grey, blurry, narrow. Take care.