Writers and readers go mobile and social at Wattpad

SAN FRANCISCO — Allen Lau considers himself living proof that love of good writing is alive and well in the age of streaming video and terse text messages.

He offers as further evidence the 32 million people who each month visit online literature social network Wattpad, which he and Ivan Yuen launched eight years ago as an online venue for writers and readers to connect.

“Wattpad is the world’s largest community for reading and writing,” Lau told AFP during a recent visit to San Francisco to meet with investors in the Toronto-based startup.

“We’ve created a mobile and social storytelling experience.”

Of the more than nine billion minutes spent monthly reading at Wattpad, about 85 percent is done using smartphones or tablet computers, according to Lau.

More than a million Wattpad users are writers, who typically upload a chapter at a time while readers tune in the way they might watch episodes of a television series.

“We make story telling very different and unique,” Lau said.

Readers shape stories 


Readers share feelings, thoughts and criticisms with one another and authors at the social network, sometimes shaping fates of characters or directions of stories.

“Writing and reading have traditionally been very solitary experiences,” Lau said.

“In this case, writers get constant feedback from readers in real time; and from the reader perspective it is almost like watching a TV show with 10 million people all at once.”

Readers are free to wait until books are complete and then binge on chapter after chapter, but that is rarely the case at Wattpad. The most common question fired off at the service was said to be “When will the next chapter be released?”

After Wattpad noticed writers providing links to music videos to listen to as background for reading, the social network added a way to embed YouTube clips.

“It has been so widely used, if you go to YouTube and search ‘Wattpad’ you will find millions of videos,” Lau said.

“The writing is the main actor, but we have supporting characters: video and sound.”

Wattpad sees a quarter of a million chapters uploaded daily, with about 24 hours worth of reading arriving at the service each minute.

Less than half the visits to Wattpad come from the United States, and the service is growing strong in an array of countries including Turkey, Italy, Britain, and Spain.

“Not everyone has an e-book store, a library, or a regular book store, but everyone will be on the Internet and everyone will have a smartphone,” Lau reasoned.

“I am the walking proof that it is rubbish people aren’t reading as much; the Internet is helping people to read and write more.”

Writers find fame

The Wattpad mobile application is free, as is access to work uploaded by writers. More than half the stories on Wattpad were written on mobile devices.

Wattpad writers don’t get paid, but exposure at the social network provides opportunities for them to make money.

Publishing house Simon and Schuster gave Wattpad author Anna Todd a sizable advance to make a series of books out of “After” stories she wrote on her Android smartphone and uploaded to the social reading network, according to Lau.

Hundreds of writers reportedly have seen their work on Wattpad lead to traditional publishing deals.

In collaboration with USA Network, Wattpad has commissioned a writer to create prequel stories intended to promote a coming “Dig” television show.

“This is one of the first,” Lau said of the partnership.

“Whether a TV show or Starbucks, all good brands have good stories to tell. And where else can they tell their story but the world’s largest story-telling platform?”

While Wattpad remains focused on growth, not revenue, companies can sponsor stories at the network or commission writers to craft tales tied to brands.

Revenue from sponsorships is shared with writers, according to Wattpad.

Wattpad’s popularity has soared in the Philippines, where the first television adaptation of a story from the social network is heading for prime time television.

Books and films have also been made there from Wattpad works.

Wattpad has raised about $70 million in venture capital funding, the most recent round in April.

Terms of service at the Wattpad.com include not using, copying, or distributing content without express permission.

source: interaksyon.com

Bayo and the importance of good writing

This was first posted on Facebook in reaction to the Bayo ad campaign that scandalized the Internet last week. I thought I’d share it here as well.

If there's anything that the Bayo brouhaha has taught us, it's that GOOD WRITING IS IMPORTANT.

Working in media, it is oftentimes taken for granted that most Filipinos, no matter the tax bracket, would rather look at pretty pictures than read words.

The complaints over an ad that many people interpreted as faintly racist proved that Filipinos do read, and that their thoughts count.

The ad's main fault isn't that it was offensive (it was trying to sell clothes, not perpetuaute an ideology) but that it suffers from bad writing.

Many people, all of them non-writers, think that writing is an easy task. That as long as you passed language class and can string words together to form coherent thought, you can write anything, from novels to advertising copy. Writers will tell you that this is not so. Writing is hard work. It may look like a lot of sitting at a desk and staring out windows and putting the words you learned in spelling class to good use, but it's more than that. There is effort and tears and if you get a paper cut, blood. And yet, especially now, writing is something many of people take for granted.

And here is the self-serving part of this post, a sentiment that I am sure all professional writers have felt at some point in their lives: Writers have labored for far too long under inadequate circumstances. We are paid very little for what we do, and our craft is, more often than not, considered as filler instead of meat.

If there's anything the Bayo fiasco has taught us, it's that good writing is important. And if you want good writing, you have to hire good writers. Not some random relative, not some person who will do it for cheap. Find out what makes good writing, hire good writers, and PAY THEM WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.

Most writers are terribly underpaid, and their craft is often taken for granted because the common way of thinking is "if my first grade son can write an essay, why do I need to pay an adult to do it?"

It's about time we reexamine the way we think about writing and writers. Because as we have seen, words do have the power to break a campaign, no matter how nice the accompanying photo is. Although when you think about it, bad writing got Bayo major Internet buzz, so that might be a good thing for them. I just don't know how it translates to sales.

source: gmanetwork.com