Last year – in June, in fact! – it was announced that Pottermore was, well, something, but we weren’t sure what. Then special people got to play while they were beta testing. Now everyone can! You can sign up to enjoy Pottermore: a unique online Harry Potter experience from J K Rowling. Here’s a sneak peek:
Tag: Web 2.0
If you’re looking for readalike suggestions (or a way to waste much time), then try this. It’s a very cool home-made (by someone very clever) visual book-recommender thingy, based on Amazon’s large database of items. It uses the information Amazon gathers about customer purchases to create links (myriads of links!) between your favourite titles, and other similar ones.
For example, here’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan using the gizmo. If you are using a mouse with a scroll button, scrolling will zoom in and out, revealing a really large web of possibilities. Another example: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green.
Very cool.
(found via mediabistro.com)
If you’re not happy unless you have your technology all fully customised, and tools are your best friend, then you’ll be interested in this page here, which tells you all the Wellington City Libraries Web 2.0 gadgets you can use. The page features such gems as:
- a browser search add-on (you can search the library catalogue from the comfort of the search bar in the top right corner of your browser)
- the library lookup link (which allows you to check to see if the library’s got a copy of the book you’re looking at on amazon, or wherever)
- a GoodReads custom booklink (again, you can check easily to see if the book on your To Read shelf is available at the library)
- and much more.
I sometimes think libraries are like the human brain: we only take advantage of about 5% of their capacity. Here’s your opportunity to put the library through its paces.
The moving poster for The Hunger Games movie has just been released, and it looks pretty cool:
Today is the official publication date for The Clockwork Angel, the first in the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare (author of the Mortal Instruments series), and here is the official book trailer:
I wonder about book trailers and whether they’re a good idea – do you want to see what the characters and landscapes look like in a book trailer before reading? Hm. Anyway, the library copies will be ready for borrowing soon (they need library-proofing and cataloguing and whatnot first). If you haven’t reserved it yet and you’re interested in reading it you can do it now!
What’s newish for young adults in Overdrive (WCL’s digital audiobook collection)? Well, there’s Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (to go with The Hunger Games), and also The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer.
There are some (new) classics too: The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 1984 by George Orwell, and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (and much more), all of which feature on our semifamous classic novels in haiku booklist here.
Haven’t used Overdrive before? Have a look at the Quick Start Guide which tells you what you need to do to get going. There’s also a Guided Tour.
So, browse Overdrive for Young Adult titles here, download them onto your MP3 player and go running, or something.
In fact, here’s the QR code for the YA on the Overdrive catalogue, so if you have one of those fancy phones this will save you a few seconds: just take its picture and hey presto you’re searching through the titles just like that.
John Green, co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Web 2.0 enthusiast had this to say about the All Whites’ effort against Italy at the World Cup (so we thought it was worth a mention): “A heroic, relentless performance by #NZL. Just unbelievable. I am kind of in tears to be honest.” (In context here. He’s set up a special world cup Twitter account @johnsworldcup, plus his regular Twitter account is @realjohngreen, complete with a million + followers.) Needless to say, we like John Green.
Speaking of Twitter, Wellington City Libraries is on Twitter too (@wcl_library). You can follow us for updates on recently acquired interesting library items, what’s going on at the moment, and notifications of new blog posts, like on this here blog, for example.
This post was brought to you by Library Serf, in the absence of regular football reporter, Roberto B, who is recovering.
(Thanks to Kym for info too.)
Further to this post we did earlier about Facebook and privacy, if you’re wanting to keep your Facebook page between yourself and your friends here’s a helpful tutorial on changing your settings so that the whole world and its dog can’t see who you’re playing Scrabble with:
View more presentations from WellingtonCityLibraries.
(Thanks to Magalie for putting this together!)
YA Central is the name of Penguin publishing’s online content for teens and readers of YA fiction. They have interviews with authors (videos, no less) such as Laurie Halse Anderson (and here), John Green, and Lauren Myracle. Access to other author interview videos, book trailers and behind-the-scene footage is promised. It’s part of The Publisher’s Office, Penguin’s online periodical, which is full of all kinds of stuff – web 2.0 at its most literary.
Fans of the Avatar DVDs will be very pleased to hear about the movie The Last Airbender, directed by M Night Shyamalan (who sees dead people, for example, in The Sixth Sense). The cast has many interesting people, for example Dev Patel (Skins, Slumdog Millionnaire), Jackson Rathbone (he of the pained-looking Jasper in Twilight), and the great Cliff Curtis. The official site is here, the IMDB page here, and then here’s the trailer:
Speaking of Twilight, as with Twilight and Twilight, there’s going to be a new New Moon book cover to tie in with the Twilight: New Moon movie. It’ll make Team Jacob happy – here’s a link.
More on Cassandra Clare and web2.0-ness: her publisher is promoting City of Glass with the aid of a widget that you can grab from their site (here) and stick on your blog and share for example (from thebookseller.com).
Shaun Tan fan? Have a look at this interview in the School Library Journal. [Shaun Tan and Pixar? I thought. Well, he was a concept artist on Wall-E. Fun.]
Twitterature is hot; but who needs 140 characters when you can do it in 17 syllables? (I feel a competition coming on.)
It’s less than a month to Harry Potter number 6. Then, finally, Coraline on the 6th of August, in glorious 3D.
If you read loads of websites and blogs that update regularly (like this one), and you think, “gosh, if only all these sites’ contents could be stuck onto one handy page,” then consider using an RSS reader. Rather than opening many websites at once, an RSS reader grabs the newest content from them for you. So handy!
There are several RSS readers available. If you’ve a Google account then Google Reader is good and reliable. Bloglines is another of the more well-known ones.
(RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which sounds simple but probably is quite complex.)
Anyway, the Teen Blog’s RSS feed is here.
Yes, the whole thing. On his 9 city video world tour (rock star style) last year he was recorded reading The Graveyard Book, a chapter at each exotic location. The videos are on his Mouse Circus website.
I had imagined him standing in front of the Hollywood sign, in Red Square, or under the Brooklyn hill wind turbine but no, it’s just Neil. Never mind, if you get a bit restless you could also play Graveyard Book sudoku while you listen or download a Coraline screensaver, or, or.
Neil Gaiman is one of the most Web 2.0 writers around. See also his normal website, or his blog. He also tweets. (Aspiring or established authors take note: this is how to promote your work on the web.)
If you use Facebook but are a bit worried about your privacy, or people tagging unfortunate photos with your name, check out this; 10 privacy settings every Facebook user should know. Facebook is complex: the website the article is hosted on, Allfacebook.com, has loads of useful Facebook news, applications and tips.
If you wanted to go to the Big Day Out but can’t, you can watch it instead via this live stream. You won’t get sunburnt and you won’t need to go to Auckland.
