Paragraphr.com - Writing and Reading Get Socialized

The demise of the book is frequently heralded by new media folks. Everything must go digital is their adamant refrain, and so it seems to becoming true.

Case in point, Paragraphr. This alpha site transports writing and reading into the world of web 2.0. It brings these traditionally personal acts into the public sphere. For writers, Paragraphr can be thought of as an ersatz typewriter and publisher mixed together into one solid unit. Authors write down their stories, articles, and novels, paragraph by paragraph. For each paragraph there are comment points in which readers can make suggestions, critique, and engage the writer. There are also feeds for both comments and books. Also, as a token to the medium I suppose, each post contains a summary of number of characters, pages, and words at the top of the page; this way, readers can quickly decide whether it’s too much of read, or if it’s just right.

“Welcome to Paragraphr!
We invite you to join us in building this exciting new platform for the book lovers. We like books, reading and writing. Our lifestyle is changing, but the book has not. While we love the book as has been through its long history, additional kinds may be neccessary to make it alive. At the least, we are having fun experimenting some crazy ideas. Hope you to enjoy, too. Thanks!”

Paragraphr delves right into the 2.0 spirit combining collective crowd wisdom, interaction, and instant publication. For writers, especially those who have yet to publish, this is a perfect medium to test out their writing skills, get feedback, and gain experience. It also takes writing back to its more socially oriented roots.

This site has that still-in-construction look to it; it needs work. This sort of social writing and publishing concept has been done before, and unless Paragraphr can up its traffic and get more submissions, it will likely fall beneath the competition. It would be nice to see widgets that authors could put on their own sites, as well as the option to export files as pdfs.

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