Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu was Crowdsourcing author Jeff Howe. He talked about his efforts to create the largest book club possible on Twitter–a place where “a zillion” Twitter users could read the same book at once.
Later this week he will unveil the selections, allowing readers and a team of judges to pick the final book. Press play below to listen.
Here’s an excerpt: “They try to do The Big Read around a geographic center, which makes a lot of sense–[asking] what if everyone in Chicago could get along? But I was really interested in saying, let’s drop geography because Twitter really creates its own geography. I thought, ‘let’s see if we can get everyone on Twitter to read the same book.'”
He also talked about the negative effects of crowdsourcing: “Crowdspring recently introduced a crowdsourcing program for writing projects. And they were like, ‘Jeff, could you show us some link love?’ And I was like, ‘No! I’m not going to shower attention and affection on the very phenomenon that is going to put me out of business. I mean, I already have [with my book].’ That’s one of things I always say, I’m documenting my own obsolescence.”